Hakeem Jeffries says Trump meeting exposed GOP shutdown fight to be over ‘fake issue’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) revealed new details of his private meeting with President Donald Trump on Saturday, details that he alleged proved that the Republican position amid the ongoing government shutdown is based on a “fake issue.”

Jeffries met with Trump alongside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) this week in the hopes of averting a government shutdown. The meeting proved fruitless, however, with lawmakers failing to come to an agreement by an Oct. 1 deadline, and disagreements largely centered around health care policy.

Democrats have demanded that any spending bill include an extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which provides financial assistance for health insurance, typically for those without employer-sponsored coverage. Republicans, however, have stood firm in refusing to fund the extension, claiming that doing so would provide “free health care for illegals.”

Yet, despite the frequent claim from Republican leadership, including from the White House, the matter was hardly discussed during Jeffries’ meeting with Trump this week, something that the House minority leader said was proof the talking point wasn’t actually top of mind for Republicans.

“The cameras weren’t rolling,” Jeffries said, speaking with reporters from his Capitol suite in Washington, D.C., the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. “So much of what Republicans say publicly, they did not say privately. Republicans spent less than 10 seconds on this fake issue related to undocumented immigrants and healthcare.”

The claim that extending Obamacare subsidies would provide health care for undocumented immigrants has been parroted by many GOP leaders, including by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Vice President JD Vance – who also attended the meeting with Jeffries – and a litany of Republican lawmakers.

Republicans’ opposition to funding the subsidies also stands in contrast to a majority of GOP voters who say they support extending Obamacare subsidies by a rate of 59% to 40%, according to a recent poll from the nonprofit policy organization the Kaiser Family Foundation. That same poll showed that even among self-described “MAGA” Republicans, 57% of them supported extending Obamacare subsidies.