House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sat for an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper that he may have thought was going to be a softball session — but he was mistaken.
Tapper got Jeffries to admit that what the Democrats are pushing for actually does fund healthcare for illegal aliens, as Republicans have said.
Jeffries said that “the continuing resolution that they have presented to Congress is a partisan bill.
House Democrats voted against it in March because it hurt veterans, hurt seniors, hurt children, hurt child care affordability, hurt housing affordability, and hurt healthcare, which is why we opposed it.”
“You’re saying that Chuck Schumer then voted for a Republican partisan bill because he voted for that so did nine other Democrats in the March, Tapper responded.
“Well, Chuck Schumer did explain his views on the merits of that bill at the time. I don’t think he ever disputed that there were challenging parts of that legislation. The partisan bill is the one that’s before us now. A bipartisan agreement on spending had actually been reached in December, bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate. Joe Biden signed it into law. Then President-elect Donald Trump blessed it as well,” Jeffries said.
“So let me ask you about a provision that the Republicans are talking about quite a bit. I know you want to talk about, and Democrats want to talk about, extending the Obamacare subsidies, which expire at the end of 2025. But they talk about the provisions, and it’s right here, Subtitle E, and this has to do with the repeal of healthcare subtitle and specifically what it is. They — they’re — how they characterize — characterize it is, you want to give health insurance to undocumented immigrants. I understand that’s not really an accurate depiction,” the host said before Jeffries interrupt and said “That’s a lie.”
Tapper claimed that it was a “lie” but then proved it was not a lie when he said, “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. So they’re non-citizens, 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?”
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“Well, what we’re doing is fighting to protect the healthcare of the American people against the largest cut to Medicaid ever, 14 million American citizens are going to lose their healthcare as a result of what Republicans did,” Jeffries said.
“I’m talking about the Medicaid cuts that document that you just showed me, that was the one big ugly bill, 14 million Americans are going to lose access to healthcare. Their hospitals, their nursing homes, their community-based health clinics are closing because of what the Republicans have done,” Jeffries said after Tapper pressed.
“These are hard-working American taxpayers. And the Republicans know they’re lying about this issue. By the way, current federal law is clear, taxpayer dollars cannot be spent on Medicaid or Medicare or the Affordable Care Act related to undocumented immigrants, and not a single Democrat has raised the issue of trying to reverse that federal law,” he said.
