In an article for The New Republic, writer Greg Sargent bashed Vice President JD Vance for a flip-flop from supporter of the working poor to a staunch Trumpist potentially willing to sacrifice Medicaid to move President Donald Trump's spending bill through Congress.
Vance famously wrote about the struggles he faced growing up poor in a de-industrialized Ohio town in his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.
Once seen as a champion of the working class, Vance supported the view that any cuts to Medicaid — long considered a lifeline for low-income Americans — would "undermine the idea that Trump is remaking the GOP as a 'working-class party.'"
Medicaid cuts "will fall heavily on the working poor," Sargent wrote, "precisely the demographic Trump is supposed to be ushering into the GOP."
EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade
Sargent's observations come as House Republicans figure out how to pay for Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill." Although Trump admonished House Republicans not to touch Medicaid during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill Tuesday, he also urged holdouts to get the bill passed.
But the bill's current iteration contains "Republican provisions to place limits on the program, which could make it harder for people to obtain benefits," NBC News reported.
Sargent wrote that In 2017, during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, Vance claimed that voters backed Trump "because unlike other Republicans, he 'wasn’t saying I’m going to take away … your Medicaid.'"
But Vance's "evolution as a public figure" has included "sordid compromises he’s made to rise to the pinnacle of MAGA politics," Sargent wrote.
He concluded, "If Vance and Trump end up supporting some version of the deep Medicaid cuts in the GOP bill—which is very likely—then it should go without saying that Vance should be held to account for all the ways this move betrays those previously stated ideals."