Yoho unfazed by Trump’s threat of fight

President Donald Trump tweeted that the Freedom Caucus must be fought. Rep. Ted Yoho, a Freedom Caucus member, wasn’t bothered.

President Donald Trump had a message Thursday for legislators who opposed the American Health Care Act.

“The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast,” Trump tweeted. “We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”

Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Gainesville, is part of the Freedom Caucus. He opposed AHCA, which was to replace the Affordable Care Act.

But he’s not bothered by Trump’s words.

“That’s just his style,” Yoho said in an interview Friday. “It hasn’t changed my view in any way.”

Yoho, a longtime Trump supporter, said he disapproved of the AHCA because it didn’t fully repeal the ACA. The AHCA, he said, treated small businesses like large businesses in forcing them to provide health benefits, and advanceable, refundable tax credits were too similar to the ACA’s subsidies.

“We didn’t really change anything here,” he said. “It does not charge down the cost of health care.”

Yoho said he wanted a “100 percent” repeal of the ACA and to replace it with a plan that opened up the free market for insurance.

“We will get health reform of some sort,” he said.

Trump’s tweets, he said, weren’t a cause for alarm to him or the Freedom Caucus.

“I think it’s a waste of internet space and broadband space,” he added.

Yoho co-sponsored H.R. 1633, a bill calling for enhanced sanctions on North Korea, and H.R. 1643, a bill that would give federal agencies more power to reduce employees’ pay and grade and to fire them.

Yoho represents Florida’s third congressional district, which includes Alachua, Bradford, Clay, Putnam and Union counties and northern Marion counties.

In addition to health care reform, Yoho said he hopes tax reform and national security take congressional priority.

“We’re serving a nation, not a party,” he said. “I think that’s been pretty evident in the stances we’re taking.”