The Latest on Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s resignation from the Trump Cabinet (all times local):
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s resignation from the Trump Cabinet (all times local):
5:55 p.m.
The resignation of Tom Price as secretary of Health and Human Services is drawing partisan responses from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
Price resigned Friday amid investigations into his costly travel on charter flights.
The Republican House speaker, Paul Ryan, is praising Price, saying that the former Georgia congressman and House Budget Committee chairman is a “good man.”
The top House Democrat, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, says Price should never have become health secretary because the country needs someone in the job “who believes in health care for all Americans.”
Pelosi says President Donald Trump should pick a replacement who will stop the administration’s sabotage of health care programs.
Price has been a top Democratic target because he’s been a point man in Trump administration efforts to scrap and undermine “Obamacare.”
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5:35 p.m.
The resignation of Tom Price as secretary of Health and Human Services is drawing partisan responses from lawmakers.
Price resigned Friday amid investigations into his costly travel on charter flights.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is praising Price, saying in a statement that the former Georgia congressman and House Budget Committee chairman is a “good man.”
On the Democratic side, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state says Price was always unacceptable for the job because of his “ideologically driven” views on health care, especially women’s health. Murray says the Trump administration lets top officials “put themselves and partisan politics ahead of families.”
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden says Price “betrayed the agency’s mission to improve Americans’ health care.” He says Price’s replacement must implement federal health care laws and work to reduce prescription drug prices.
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Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price says he regrets that the controversy over his travel created a distraction for the Trump administration and its health overhaul agenda.
Price writes in his resignation letter to President Donald Trump: “I have spent 40 years both as a doctor and public servant putting people first.”
He adds: “I regret that the recent events have created a distraction from these important objectives.”
Price says he will continue to support Trump’s priorities.
His resignation takes effect at 11:59 p.m. on Friday.
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5:20 p.m.
The secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, has resigned amid investigations of his costly travel on charter flights.
Price is the first member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to be pushed out.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is praising Price, saying in a statement that the former Georgia congressman and House Budget Committee chairman is a “good man.”
Ryan says Price was a “leader in the House and a superb health secretary,” and he credits Price for helping the House pass a health care bill earlier this year. That measure went nowhere in the Senate.
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5:15 p.m.
The Senate’s top Democrat is using the resignation of health secretary Tom Price to say the agency should stop undermining the Affordable Care Act.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Health and Human Services Department is supposed to “support Americans’ health care, not take it away.”
The New Yorker and other Democrats have criticized the administration for cutting federal efforts to help people sign up for coverage under President Barack Obama’s 2010 law. Trump wants to repeal that law, and his administration has cut spending for advertising and assisting groups that sign up consumers.
Schumer says the health agency should follow the law “instead of trying to sabotage it.”
Price resigned Friday following revelations he repeatedly used expensive charter flights instead of less-costly travel on airlines.
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4:40 p.m.
President Donald Trump’s health secretary has resigned, after his travel on costly charter flights triggered investigations and angered his boss.
Tom Price’s partial repayment and public regrets couldn’t save his job.
The Health and Human Services secretary became the first member of the president’s Cabinet to leave office in a turbulent young administration that has seen several high-ranking White House aides ousted. Price served less than 8 months.
Trump had said he was “not happy” with Price for hiring private charters on the taxpayer’s dime for official travel, when cheaper commercial flights would have worked.
The flap over Price has overshadowed Trump’s agenda and prompted scrutiny of other Cabinet members’ travel. The House Oversight and Government Reform committee has launched a broad investigation of top political appointees.
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3:40 p.m.
President Donald Trump says he’ll soon have a decision on the fate of his embattled health secretary – maybe as early as today.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has been dogged by criticism over a pattern of booking costly charter flights for official travel.
The president says he will be “announcing something in the pretty near future.” Trump says Price has not offered to resign.
Price is a “good man,” Trump added, but he’s “not happy” over the travel flap.
“I don’t like the optics,” he told reporters as he left the White House for the weekend.
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2:35 p.m.
The Environmental Protection Agency says four flights on noncommercial aircraft taken by Administrator Scott Pruitt were preapproved by ethics lawyers.
Documents show Pruitt and his staff chartered a private plane for an Aug. 4 trip from Denver to Durango, Colorado, to visit the Gold King Mine, site of a spill last year. The administrator also took three flights on government-owned planes to New York, North Dakota and a roundtrip between airports in Pruitt’s native Oklahoma.
Letters released by EPA show the flights cost a total of $58,000 and were approved by the agency’s general counsel’s office.
EPA’s inspector general opened an inquiry last month into Pruitt’s frequent taxpayer-funded travel on commercial planes. The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Pruitt often spends weekends at his Tulsa home.
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12:20 p.m.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says he’s taken three charter flights since March, including a late-night trip costing more than $12,000 from Las Vegas to his home state of Montana in June.
Zinke says no commercial flight was available at the time he planned to speak to Western governors.
Zinke said Friday he also traveled by private plane in Alaska in May and the U. S. Virgin Islands in March. Zinke wants to expand energy prodcution in Alaska, while the Interior Department oversees the three U. S. Virgin Islands.
Zinke says he also went on a military flight with the agriculture secretary to see wildfires in Montana.
