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Donald Trump softens his stance on Obamacare and Hillary Clinton’s emails

He may not repeal the health care measure or attempt to jail his former opponent after all

Justin Carissimo
New York
Saturday 12 November 2016 16:27 GMT
Donald Trump shifts his position on Obamacare during CBS 60 minutes interview

After a brutal election cycle, with no shortage of condemnation surrounding Hillary Clinton’s “damn emails” and calls for repealing Obamacare, Donald Trump appears to be taking a few steps back from the tone of his inflammatory campaign—for now.

While speaking with The Wall Street Journal, he admitted that after speaking with President Barack Obama on Thursday, he would reconsider his campaign promise to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare.

"Either Obamacare will be amended, or repealed and replaced," he said in the interview which aired Sunday morning. He said that Mr Obama encouraged him to reconsider while they met for 90-minutes in the Oval Office. "I told him I will look at his suggestions,” he continued, “and out of respect, I will do that."

Mr Trump explained that he would try to retain the measure that allows citizens to stay on their parent or guardian’s health insurance plan before they reach the age of 26. "We're going to very much try to keep that,” he later told 60 Minutes on CBS, which airs on Sunday night. “It adds cost but it's very much something we're going to try to keep.”

Just one day before the election, Mr Trump told his audience to “look at the mess” and “the corruption” in Washington and that America would experience “real change” when immediately repeals and replaces “the disaster known as Obamacare."

In both interviews, the presidential-elect, who's often criticized for his treatment of women, both in his business practices and in his personal life, seemed to drop his clear resentment of Ms Clinton and admitted that prosecuting and jailing her over her use of a private email server is not a top priority for his administration.

“It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought, because I want to solve health care, jobs, border control, tax reform,” he told the Journal. In the 60 minutes broadcast, he said that the call in which Ms Clinton conceded was “lovely.”

“She’s very strong and very smart,” he said, adding that he was also congratulated by Bill Clinton. “He couldn’t have been more gracious. He said it was an amazing run. One of the most amazing he had ever seen.”

The president-elect’s new tone will unlikely have an effect on the growing anti-Trump demonstrations across the country, which seek to address the Republican's inflammatory comments toward women, Muslims, Hispanics, and African-Americans on the campaign trail. Mr Trump has not yet made any attempts to backtrack on the remarks he made on the campaign trail and when the Journal asked if his tactics were inappropriate, he simply replied by saying, “No. I won.”

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