A pair of analysts on Sunday chided House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) attempts to justify the government shutdown during the morning news shows.
Johnson joined CBS's Margaret Brennan on CBS' "Face The Nation" on Sunday to discuss the ongoing government shutdown. During the interview, Johnson repeated a claim that Democrats are trying to provide free health care for illegal immigrants in the continuing resolution to fund the government. He also told people to "go see it for yourself" and provided the alleged page and section of the bill's language he was referencing.
Sam Stein and Will Saletan of The Bulwark noted on a new episode of the "Bulwark Takes" podcast that Johnson's claims are a "flat-out lie."
"This is Johnson's standard spin, and he always says, 'If you go to page 57 of the Democrats' CR, you'll find this thing blah blah blah,'" Saletan said. "It's like a Let's Lawyer game, right? nd the point is you're never supposed to actually go read it because if you go read it, you'll find out...there is nothing in there about Democrats demanding anything for illegal aliens."
"Did you actually read it?" Stein asked.
"Of course, I read it," Saletan added. "What there is, just so people know this, it's a paragraph that says we want to repeal a bunch of Republican cuts to health care. And, okay, so what's in the Republican cuts to healthcare? Some tiny fraction of them have to do with enforcement mechanisms to make sure that people who are here illegally can't get health care."
"It's only about the enforcement mechanisms," Saletan continued. "It's already totally illegal."
"So the by undoing the one big beautiful bill, Democrats are taking away the Medicaid cuts that Trump put in place, but they're also taking away the need for a rural hospital bailout fund," he added. "But of course, Johnson doesn't want to elaborate on it. It's just they're harming rural hospitals. It's a nice sleight of hand, right?"
