Scuttling bipartisan efforts to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared he will not support any legislation to do so. The withdrawal of the Obamacare subsidies has sent next year’s premiums soaring for millions of Americans, and millions are expected to lose coverage due to the high cost.

In an all-caps post on his Truth Social website, the president announced that the only health care he would support “is sending the money directly back to the people, with nothing going to the big, fat, rich insurance companies.”

“The people will be allowed to negotiate and buy their own, much better, insurance. Power to the people!” he added.

Insurance companies are not known for negotiating premiums, and individual policies historically are far more expensive than group policies, such as those obtained through an employer or via the Obamacare exchanges.

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Noting that “senators are preparing to tee up a vote on the issue,” Bloomberg News reported that Trump’s message is now “complicating his party’s efforts to address health care costs.”

During the federal government  shutdown, Democrats highlighted the issue of skyrocketing premiums and negotiated a deal with Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune for a vote to extend the subsidies.

“With millions of Americans facing a potential hike in their premiums and with concerns about affordability front and center among the electorate, Democrats are seizing on the issue,” Bloomberg noted. “Republicans now face the challenging prospect of either bucking the president and extending subsidies or finding another solution to the issue of health-care costs, an issue that has long vexed lawmakers.”

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries responded, saying: “Republicans created this healthcare crisis, and they continue to try to rip affordable healthcare away from the American people,” according to Bloomberg News’ Erik Wasson. “They are who they are, and the American people know it, and they’re gonna pay the price.”

Politico reported on Tuesday that a “senior White House official said the Trump administration intends to put forward a health bill and left open the possibility of using the fast-track legislative process of reconciliation for passage of health or tariff legislation.”

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Critics blasted the president’s refusal to support extending subsidies.

“He’s for them, Not for you,” declared U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

“Trump’s priority isn’t your health or your costs, it’s his ego,” commented House Ways and Means Committee Democrats. “He’ll watch your health care costs triple just to erase the name Obamacare.”

“Between their trillion dollar cut to Medicaid and their elimination of boosted ACA tax credits, Donald Trump and the GOP will be responsible for millions of Americans losing health coverage and tens of millions more paying much higher costs,” wrote economic policy expert Michael Linden. “Crazy, totally crazy.”

“Senate Democrats who voted to end the shutdown got played. Shocking,” remarked political strategist Andrew Laureti.

“Trump’s made some curious decisions in the past few weeks, but nothing more consequential than deciding that instead of finding some middle ground on Ocare subsidies they’re gonna go in the entire opposite direction and try to jam through their own health care bill,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted, responding to the Politico report. “Wild stuff.”

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Ten months into his second term, critics say President Donald Trump appears weakened, and Republicans who once moved in lockstep are now splintering into competing MAGA factions.

Trump currently sits on the worst polling averages of his presidency, according to data from The New York Times. The president’s “dramatic U-turn” on the release of the Epstein files — the result, critics say, of a wave of House Republicans prepared to defy his wishes — is being seen as a watershed moment. His once loyal foot soldier, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), has marched away, or ahead, of him on key issues, including affordability and the Epstein files.

Some, including Greene, say he lost his way by focusing too much on foreign policy and not enough on the promises that put him back in the White House, namely, lowering the cost of living.

“Trump is without question still the titular head of the Republican Party and leader of the America First and MAGA movement,” Republican strategist Dennis Lennox told The Washington Post. “But after a decade, there are new faces giving voice to the element that wants Trump to focus more on domestic issues.”

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“Lennox cited a ‘growing split’ among factions of the conservative movement ‘on a multitude of issues,'” added the Post, which noted that Trump is currently is a “weakened position.”

Meanwhile, The Hill sees current events as the “fight to define what the political right will stand for after President Trump leaves office.”

MAGA leaders like Greene are carving out a path, and are not afraid to criticize Trump, which comes at a cost. Trump has branded Greene a traitor, she said on Tuesday, before she lashed out.

“Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves, a patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans like the women standing behind me,” Greene said, according to BBC News.

Others, like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), rumored to be considering another presidential run in 2028, are using the party’s battle with antisemitism as a tool to rebrand himself.

The weeks-old crisis at the Heritage Foundation — its president declared support for former Fox News host Tucker Carlson after he gave what some saw as a softball interview to far right extremist leader Nick Fuentes — has helped Republicans like Cruz take a stand against antisemitism. Fuentes is widely seen as promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.

On Sunday, President Trump took the opposing view, praising Carlson.

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“I found him to be good,” Trump said of Carlson. “I mean, he said good things about me over the years. And he’s, I think he’s good.”

The off-year elections earlier this month, where Democrats sharply beat Republicans by margins more than some expected, were “a wake-up call to Republicans that without Trump on the ballot to motivate voters, they may have to figure out a new political coalition,” The Hill noted.

“There was sort of a vibe shift on the right where it became completely apparent to everybody that Trump, who’s a dominating figure on the right, was not going to be here forever,” Tim Chapman, president of the Advancing American Freedom think tank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, told The Hill. “A lot of the policy objectives that we’re pursuing right now, many of them come from Trump personally. And so there’s a question as to what animates the next political coalition.”

Vice President JD Vance is seen as a likely heir to the Trump MAGA movement. But as Chapman told The Hill, “a lot of conservatives, who have very much for very good reasons, wanted to give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt are now 10 months in and are very concerned about what they’re seeing, especially on the economic policy.”

READ MORE: Democrat Warns How Trump Could Engineer a Path to Stay in Power After 2028

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A conservative political operative turned commentator and journalist has a grassroots prescription for what she believes ails conservatism in the age of Trump — a “cure” for Trumpism.

Sarah Isgur worked on campaigns for Mitt Romney and Carly Fiorina, served as a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is now an editor at The Dispatch, a conservative news site.

In an interview with The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, Isgur outlined some suggestions for everyday Americans who may identify as conservative — or who want to make changes.

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Isgur “lays out her dream for a return to a small-government ethos and constrained presidential power,” which includes her belief that government can’t fix everything. She also believes there should be no independent federal agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Trade Commission, and Congress needs to take more control.

“It’s not that we’re always going to agree on everything,” Isgur added. “That’s never been the American way. My God, we’re connected by nothing — not race, not creed, not religion. This is what we do, though, is that we say we’re going to, first of all, have decisions made at the most local level so that the person making that decision is most responsive and most represents their own constituents.”

So, how does she think that happens?

Americans, she said, “have to look at what is tending to win these elections and the currents that we’re beating up against.”

When asked, “What advice would you give to people who are deeply dissatisfied with what our political system is delivering and want to do something that’s fundamentally patriotic, which is get involved?” Isgur offered a grassroots answer.

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“Stop reading political news,” she advised. “Put your phone down. Go talk to your neighbors, check out what they’re doing. Don’t talk about politics, just check on their health. How’s their mom? What are the kids up to? Do you have any cute kid videos to show me?”

She urged Americans to “be radically involved in your neighborhood and your community. And I really mean your smallest community — getting to know the other parents in your kids’ class.”

And, she said, “Vote in primaries.”

“Our elections are increasingly getting decided in primaries and that itself is bad. And the way to fix it is to vote in primaries.”

And register for the party that you want to influence, she suggested.

“I don’t understand people who refuse to register with the other party. It’s not a tattoo. You didn’t sign up for a new religion. Part of the problem is we think of politics as a religion. I’m just signing up in a primary to help pick who that candidate is going to be in the general election. That’s it. That’s the extent of what it means to register for a political party,” Isgur explained.

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