WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans, short of votes, abandoned their latest and possibly final attempt to kill the Affordable care Act on Tuesday, just ahead of a critical end-of-the-week deadline.

The repeal-and-replace bill’s authors promised to try again later, while President Donald Trump railed against “certain so-called Republicans” who opposed the GOP effort.

For now, Trump and fellow Republicans who vowed for seven years to abolish President Barack Obama’s law will leave it standing and turn to overhauling the nation’s tax code instead.

The GOP’s predicament was summed up bluntly by Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a lead author of the legislation: “Through events that are under our control and not under our control, we don’t have the votes.”

Sen John Kennedy of Louisiana described the bill as “dead as a doornail.”