House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) dug in his heels and made extortionate demands of President Donald Trump and Republicans when discussing whether a deal could be struck that averts a government shutdown, arguing that Republicans even need to go so far as to rescind their recent cuts of Medicaid spending to strike a proper deal.
Such is what Rep. Jeffries said when speaking during a Friday, September 26 broadcast of CNN’s “The Source” with host Kaitlin Collins, declaring that Republicans can and should be expected to undo legislation they recently passed, specifically legislation having to do with Medicaid spending, to avoid a government shutdown.
President Trump, for his part, has insisted that what Democrats are doing is trying to force him to spend over a trillion dollars on nonsense, such as on providing taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants, something that he has said in no uncertain terms that he will refuse to do.
In any case, beginning the conversation, Collins noted that while there are Republicans who are willing to negotiate other aspects of the healthcare spending deal, such as subsidies for healthcare plans, asking the GOP to back off cuts it just signed into law seems like a bridge too far for a deal.
Noting as much, Kaitlan Collins asked, “[T]here are some Senate Republicans who say they want to negotiate, actually, on those healthcare subsidies, they’d like to see them extended. But on the Medicaid funding cuts that were just passed in the president’s signature bill, I think the question is, do you really think Republicans are going to vote to undo the legislation they just passed?”
Responding, Jeffries told her that the welfare cuts that Trump has so far engaged in are despicable and need to be done away with, ignoring that all that really happened is illegal aliens were kicked off the programs and work requirements were added for able-bodied adults, changes that a great many Americans find quite reasonable.
Claiming as much, Jeffries told Collins, “Donald Trump promised, I think it was on January 30, that he was going to love and cherish Medicaid. And then they turned around, passed their one big ugly bill, and enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, along with stealing food from the mouths of children.”
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Continuing, he insisted that what Republicans need to do is reverse the Medicaid cuts because, he claimed, nursing homes are closing down. He said, “And all of this was being done to reward their billionaire donors with massive tax breaks. It’s deeply unpopular with the American people, and you have Republicans in the House and the Senate who have said, we’ve got to do something about these Medicaid cuts that we just voted for, because hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health clinics in our communities are closing.”
Continuing, Jeffries insisted, “We told them that was going to happen. Now they’re starting to see the consequences. And so, yes, we do think that there’s some bipartisan opportunity to deal with their assault on Medicaid and all of the things related to the health care of the American people.”
Jeffries also, during the appearance, freaked out over President Trump’s decision to cancel a meeting that had been scheduled with Senate Minority Leader Schumer and himself, a decision that came thanks to the outrageous demands made by the Democrats. Jeffries insisted that “makes no sense.” Watch him here: