President Donald Trump told a Georgia crowd that his administration had shut illegal immigrants out of Medicaid while directing $50 billion toward rural health care. Trump presented the two actions as part of a sweeping shift away from taxpayer-funded benefits for people in the country illegally and toward health services for rural American communities. He also argued that the changes were accomplished despite opposition from Democrats, whom he accused of neglecting rural areas because those communities tend to support him.
Trump made the remarks Wednesday during a speech at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, where he appeared to promote Trump Accounts and discuss the administration’s economic record. The address ranged across taxes, jobs, immigration, crime, and the Republican agenda in Congress. During a section focused on fraud and government spending, Trump turned to Medicaid and the new Rural Health Transformation Program.
“We ended Medicaid for illegal immigrants, and we redirected 50 billion dollars to make the largest investment in rural health in the history of our country,” Trump told the crowd. He said the money would produce visible results in communities that had been overlooked for years. “You’re getting hospitals built in areas just like this that the Democrats would never do,” he added.
The White House posted the full address after the event. Trump’s comments linked the Medicaid restrictions and the rural health program as examples of his administration changing where federal health dollars go. The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program was created through the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, which Trump signed on July 4th, 2025.
According to a White House fact sheet, the program is distributing $10 billion per year from 2026 through 2030, with funding awarded across all 50 states. The administration said states can use the money to strengthen rural workforces, modernize facilities and technology, and develop health-care models designed for communities with smaller patient populations.
Trump accused Democrats of making political calculations when deciding where federal money should be spent. “And number one, they said that’s Trump country. We’re not going to do anything,” he said, presenting the rural health investment as a response to years of partisan neglect. He told the Georgia audience that his administration had moved in the opposite direction by directing a historic amount of money toward areas that gave him strong electoral support.
Watch Trump describe the Medicaid crackdown and rural health investment here:
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The president continued by pointing to his performance in Georgia and other Republican-leaning areas. “They wouldn’t spend because we did. We got tremendous votes in your whole state,” Trump said. “We got tremendous – we won in a landslide,” he added, drawing a direct connection between the administration’s rural agenda and the voters who helped return him to the White House.
Trump closed the portion of the speech by broadening the claim beyond health policy and presenting the Medicaid and rural hospital changes as part of a larger national turnaround. He said the administration had moved quickly on the border, the economy, federal spending, and other priorities since he began his second term. “In just 18 months, we’ve turned this country around like nobody’s ever seen before.”