Obama: Obamacare is more popular than Trump - CNNPolitics.com
New York (CNN)Former President Barack Obama hailed the political resilience of his signature health care law at a private event Thursday, pointing out that Obamacare is now more popular than his successor trying to repeal it: President Donald Trump.
As Republicans in Washington sputtered again this week in their efforts to undo the law, Obama noted to an audience in midtown Manhattan that "the Affordable Care Act has never been more popular -- and it's more popular than the current president," according to a person in the room who paraphrased the comments.
Trump has recorded historically low approval ratings for a new president, while public opinion on the health care law has improved gradually amid Republican efforts to get rid of it.
Obama also predicted Thursday that it will be challenging for Trump and fellow Republicans to make any sweeping changes to a law that now provides health insurance for so many people, as he remarked how difficult it was for him to get Obamacare enacted into law in 2009.
While many Republicans have publicly said they don't like the health care law, Obama said according to the person in the room, they are now confronting the fact that many of their most vulnerable constituents have benefited from it.
Trump has a 44% approval rating heading into his 100th day in office, according to a new CNN/ORC poll this week -- the lowest approval rating of any newly elected president at this stage. In that survey, 36% said they approve of the way Trump is handling health care policy, and 47% said they favored Obamacare.
Thursday's event featuring Obama was closed-press and off-the-record, and hosted by the A&E network for a private audience, according to a source. Obama was interviewed by famed author and historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, with the question-and-answer portion lasting about one hour.
The timing of the ex-president's pointed remarks about Obamacare -- one of his landmark achievements -- was especially noteworthy because of the continued struggles that Trump and Republican lawmakers had this week in trying to repeal the law.