In yet another extremely funny and quite revealing interview to come out of the Schumer Shutdown, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) explodes in a shouting-filled tirade at “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil after he noted that the spending bill Democrats are trying to push would indeed end up providing healthcare to illegal aliens at taxpayer expense.
As background, as has been revealed by the White House and numerous Republicans, there are provisions in the spending legislation Democrats want that would end up providing taxpayer-subsidized healthcare to illegal aliens, something the Democrats have not wanted to admit to and that has infuriated Republicans. Because Republicans refuse to countenance it and Democrats refuse to back down, the shutdown is now nearing the three-week mark.
Pressing Warren on that matter, Dokoupil asked: “So, senator, you know, Republicans say what you’re really fighting for is taxpayer dollars for, as they put it, illegal aliens. I know that’s not strictly true but there is a provision –” Rudely interrupting him, Sen. Warren angrily snapped, “Oh, excuse me, ‘not strictly true.’”
Dokoupil, responding and trying to get through his question, said, “It’s not directly true, but –” Warren then fired back at him, “It is a flat-out lie. It is a flat-out lie.” Dokoupil continued trying to get through his question as Warren kept angrily rambling, saying, “There is nothing in Medicaid, nothing in Medicare, that permits one undocumented immigrant to get one dollar of assistance. None. Zero”
Dokoupil eventually got frustrated and snapped at her, “– if you let me finish the question –” Backing off the rude interruptions, she said, “Of course. I’m sorry.” Dokoupil, finally getting into his quesion, said, “– sorry, in the Democratic counter offer the proposal for funding, there is a restoration of Medicaid benefits for certain noncitizens that had been taken away in the Big, Beautiful Bill as Republicans put it.”
Warren interjected yet again, yelling, “No!” Dokoupil pressed on regardless of her rude yelling and said, “Republicans don’t think those people should be getting health care on the taxpayer dime. I’m not asking on the merits. Politically, putting that in there, exposes you to this talking point, this lie as you put it. Why put it in there? Why is it worth it?”
Warren then declared, absurdly, that Republicans are working to put rural hospitals out of business, saying, “No. What’s happened is that what we’re saying is that whenever hospitals give care, what is going to be the level of reimbursement? And the Republicans said it’s going to be a low level. The Democrats said we just want go back to the level it was before because you’re going to bankrupt hospitals. You’re going to put rural hospitals out of business.”
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Continuing, she insisted, “The Republicans and the Democrats’ plan, nothing changes the number of undocumented immigrants who still get care if they show up bleeding and unconscious at an emergency room. There is absolutely zero difference. The difference is whether or not hospitals who, under laws that date back to Ronald Reagan, may provide emergency care to anyone who’s unconscious, will actually get reimbursed at a very low level that will put the hospital ultimately out of business potentially or at a higher level.”
Declaring, falsely, that reimbursing such hospitals for random incidents is the only way the bill would fund healthcare for illegal aliens, Warren said, “The Republicans – there is no change, no change in the number of undocumented migrants who get any help under what the Democrats want. Look, what we’re looking for is help for people who are going to get pushed out of nursing homes, help for people who are at home and relying on home health aides.”
Watch her here:
Speaking in a press conference, Mike Johnson noted that such claims are a total lie. Revealing what Democrats want and are trying to do, he said, “They want to remove the rural hospital fund that Republicans fought so hard to put into the one big, beautiful bill we set $50 billion aside to take care of rural hospitals. Why would Chuck Schumer want to get rid of that? I don’t know. A lot of those rural hospitals are in red states. You have to decide for yourself what the motivations are here. But they say they prefer health care. Why would they want to do that?”
Continuing, the Speaker added, “The other thing that they put in there is very important, and on page 57 in Section 2141, [this is] not a Republican talking point, read from the Democrats document themselves. They said that they want to repeal the health provisions of the One Big, Beautiful Bill. Why is that so important? Because [those health provisions] eliminated all of the taxpayer funded benefits going to illegals.”
Then, explaining how going along with the Democrat plan would turn out, he noted that it would lead to hundreds of billions in funding for healthcare for non-citizens, saying, “The Democrats counter proposal, CR, the dirty CR, we call it, as opposed to the clean CR, would result in nearly $200 billion being spent on illegal aliens and other noncitizens.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video