In an unintentionally quite funny moment on CNN that came on Wednesday, October 1, CNN’s Jake Tapper confronted House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) about the matter of Medicaid funding for “non-citizens,” noting that the Democrat claims over the matter are untrue. Jeffries was left looking befuddled and humiliated.
As background, the whole matter began when President Donald Trump, posting about it on Truth Social, said, “They are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits, try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World, allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.”
Amongst those budgetary items that drew the most concern was his allegation, one that was soon repeated by Vice President JD Vance and the Administration itself, that amongst the spending the Democrats want is hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for healthcare for non-citizens, including illegal aliens. Democrats quickly, though unconvincingly, insisted that Trump’s allegation was false.
So, Tapper asked Rep. Jeffries about it during the Wednesday interview, saying that Republicans “characterize it as you want to give health insurance to undocumented immigrants. I understand that’s not really an accurate depiction.” Jeffries responded, “It’s a lie.”
Tapper, pressing him on that, noted, somewhat incorrectly, as the White House and others have pointed out, but still somewhat on point, “It’s a lie, but what you support does bring back funding for emergency Medicaid to hospitals, some of which does pay for undocumented immigrants and people who don’t have health insurance. And also, there is this provision, and it’s not about undocumented immigrants. It’s about people with asylum seekers and people with temporary protected status, et cetera, et cetera, but about their ability to get Medicaid.”
Continuing, Tapper noted that the provision seems, regardless of what sorts of non-citizens on it, a bad one, saying, “So they’re noncitizens. They’re not undocumented. They’re not illegal. Why even include that in a bill, knowing that they’re going to seize right upon that and use that to message? I understand that when you retake the House, you can get whatever you want passed, but at this point?”
Jeffries looked like a deer in headlights, unable to do much other than ramble about how he and his fellow Democrats wanted to undo the GOP-pushed, Trump-based “One Big, Beautiful Bill” to undue the “largest” cut to Medicaid ever. Tapper shot back, “You’re talking about the subsidies again, but I’m talking about the noncitizens.”
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Again looking befuddled and humiliated and without any good answer, Jeffries tried telling Tapper that what the Democrats are trying to do is save healthcare for a great many Americans. Tapper wasn’t buying it, and pressed, “Do you not think that the provisions that provide healthcare for noncitizens muddies that message?”
Jeffries then told an outright lie, ignoring that what his side is trying to do is fund the sort of state-level subsidies that end up aiding illegal aliens. He said, falsely, “No. You’re referring to emergency care that some states might administer based on state law. We’re talking about federal law. We don’t have the ability to change state law.”
Watch him here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video