CNN's Dana Bash grilled House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over the government shutdown in a testy exchange.
Johnson sat down with the "Inside Politics" host on Wednesday to discuss the GOP congressional majority's inability to pass a budget to keep the government open, which he blamed on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The interview started out contentiously when the speaker repeated misleading claims he had previously made to Bash's colleague.
"He wants to give health care to illegal aliens, again, we're not doing that," Johnson said. "He wanted to claw back $50 billion that our Republican big, beautiful bill put in to prop up rural hospitals. Now people say, 'Why would he do that, I thought he was for health care?' Well, a lot of those rural hospitals, most of them are in red states, so I don't know. I don't know what his motivation is. We can't do it."
Democrats are insisting that federal subsidies for Obamacare continue and are seeking to reverse cuts to Medicaid through the GOP tax bill, and Bash cut off Johnson for a quick fact check.
"You had a very spirited discussion with my friend and colleague Kaitlan Collins about illegal immigrants getting health care," she said. "I don't want to repeat that. If you want to see it, you can look on YouTube. I just want to say for the record, that Democrats, that right now the law of the land is explicitly that illegal immigrants do not get health care."
Johnson told Bash the GOP tax bill added that provision to the law, but unauthorized immigrants have always been largely ineligible for federally funded health care programs — the new legislation changed eligibility requirements for certain groups of "lawfully present" immigrants, a category that has no uniform definition and can apply to a number of noncitizens.
"There's one reason and one reason alone that they're making this," Johnson said. "Here's the motivation, let's just cut to the chase, Chuck Schumer is doing this. The reason he switched his position he's had for 30 years right now, and doing the exact opposite that he said in March of this year, as recently as March, is because he is in political jeopardy. He's afraid he's going to get a challenge from his left flank, and [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez] or someone else will run against him for his Senate seat, so Chuck Schumer has to put up a fight and pretend that he's fighting the president, fighting Republicans."
Bash was not impressed with Johnson's explanation and let him know.
"I've been in town, in this town, maybe even longer than you," she said, "and so I've seen politics played on all kinds of things."
Bash then moved on to comments by Russell Vought, the increasingly influential White House budget director, who said President Donald Trump should use the shutdown as an opportunity to fire federal workers, but Johnson skirted the topic by saying he wasn't sure what exactly was being proposed.
"I don't know, you'd have to show me a proposal of what is being presented," Johnson said.
"I don't have a proposal," Bash interjected.
Johnson said he would ask Vought about the issue during their conference call later in the afternoon, but he declined to specifically offer support for any of the programs that could possibly lose funding. Bash appeared to lose her patience when the House speaker said the White House budget director would have to make those decisions.
"Isn't that your, I mean, constitutionally, that's your job," Bash said. "Article One, that is your job."
Johnson once again passed the blame on to Schumer.
"It is until Chuck Schumer decides to hand the keys to the president, which is literally what he's doing," Johnson said. "If he makes the decision to shut the federal government down, he's shutting down the legislative branch, and he is giving the authority to the executive. That's how the system works, and he's made that decision. So is it foolhardy for him to do so? Of course, it is. Could it backfire fantastically? Yes."
- YouTube youtu.be
