House Speaker Mike Johnson blasted Democratic lawmakers and their allies in the legacy media on Thursday for appearing to intentionally mislead Americans about illegal immigrants receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare.
Johnson and top GOP leaders accused Democratic lawmakers of seeking to restore nearly $200 billion in health care benefits for illegal migrants and other non-citizens in exchange for reopening the government. The speaker has been embarking on a media blitz in recent days and told the Daily Caller News Foundation the effort is partly to refute left-wing talking points that legacy media outlets are pushing in an effort to give cover to Democrats during the shutdown fight.
“As has been demonstrated over and over, the mainstream media is simply repeating verbatim Democrat false talking points,” Johnson told the DCNF. “We have to be out there telling the truth — because the entire mainstream media apparatus is covering for the Democrats and sharing their falsehoods.”
“ABC, CNN, CBS, MSNBC — they don’t even pretend to be objective anymore,” Johnson continued. “It’s just a totally one-sided parade.”
Johnson spoke with the DCNF on the second full day of the shutdown, which began after Senate Democrats rejected a clean, bipartisan bill to fund the government through Nov. 21. The speaker has repeatedly said that he and Senate Majority Leader John Thune see no reason to negotiate with Democrats until they vote to reopen the government.
CNN notably cut away from a House GOP leadership press conference on Thursday after Johnson began discussing how Democrats’ funding plan would provide healthcare benefits to illegal migrants.
The CNN anchor appeared to fact-check Johnson’s statement despite her colleague, Jake Tapper, acknowledging Wednesday that Democrats are seeking to eliminate a provision that cracks down on certain states who provide illegal migrants with emergency Medicaid coverage.
Democrats’ proposal would also restore billions in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, eliminate a $50 million fund for rural health providers and enact a permanent extension of Biden-era Obamacare subsidies.
Johnson also ripped ABC’s George Stephanopoulos for accusing him of falsely claiming that Democrats’ proposal provides healthcare for illegal migrants in an interview Wednesday.
“They’ve [Democrats] gotten cover because, as you’ve seen, most of the mainstream media outlets are delivering, giving them softball interviews and asking them the question to read off the page,” Johnson told the DCNF. “Conversely, when I go on it’s like a coliseum.”
Johnson has pointed to six provisions within Democrats’ $1.5 trillion counter-proposal that would undo Republicans’ Medicaid reforms enacted in July and provide taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits to noncitizens, including illegal migrants.
Nearly every House Democrat voted against the clean seven-week funding extension to avert a government shutdown on Sept. 19. The one Democrat who broke ranks accused top Democrats of plunging the country into a government shutdown to curry favor with far-left activist groups.
Democrats are seeking to remove GOP-passed language that reduces Medicaid payments to states who have expanded Medicaid and offer emergency coverage to illegal migrants.
“There’s a lot of emergency health care at hospitals that [is] provided to illegal aliens,” Vice President JD Vance told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday. “That was funded by the federal government. We turned off that funding because of course we want American citizens to benefit from those hospital services, not to be taxed and then have those hospital services go to illegal aliens.”
The Democrat funding plan also removes new restrictions passed by Republicans in July that bars most noncitizens from receiving Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare.
Democratic lawmakers’ proposal would also restore a maneuver dubbed the “California Loophole” that allows Democratic-led states to use Medicaid spending to provide benefits to illegal migrants.
The amount that Democrats propose to spend on healthcare benefits for noncitizens is roughly equal to the $195 billion needed to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program for the next decade, according to a memo authored by the White House.
Johnson also sharply criticized his Democratic colleagues for either deliberately misleading voters or being unaware of the language within their own proposal to fund the government.
“There are Democrats who are intentionally lying and hoping that people will buy it,” Johnson told the DCNF. “They’re hoping that they’ll get sufficient air cover from mainstream media allies to try to convince the American people that what is on paper isn’t actually there.”
“And then there’s others who simply are ignorant of the facts,” Johnson continued. “They haven’t read, or maybe they read and don’t understand the very simple language in the legislation that they drafted.”
Some Democratic lawmakers, conversely, have defended the restoration of healthcare benefits for noncitizens and illegal migrants.
“Are Democrats demanding health care for illegal aliens?” a reporter asked Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters, who voted to shut down the government, on Tuesday.
“Democrats are demanding health care for everybody,” Waters replied. “We want to save lives.”
Johnson predicted that American citizens losing access to some healthcare services due to the shutdown could force Democrats to relent and reopen the government.
“This is real pain for real people,” Johnson told the DCNF. “The question is, how much of an appetite will they have, for how long, to jeopardize the health and safety of real American citizens?”
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