CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Calls BS on Scott Jennings Over Trump Talking Point in Heated Fracas: ‘It’s Just the Facts’
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins called BS on GOP analyst Scott Jennings over President Donald Trump’s talking point on health care and “illegals,” shutting down Jennings in a heated segment.
Amid a government shutdown that began this week, Trump and the Republicans have assailed Democrats with the talking point that, as Trump put it in an AI-generated fake video featuring racist caricatures, Democrats want to “give all these illegal aliens free health care.”
Vice President JD Vance joined the White House briefing on Wednesday to press the same talking point. But that claim has been ruled false by numerous fact-checkers.
On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins and Democratic analyst Karen Finney jumped all over Jennings as he tried to push two different variations on the theme. Collins was unrelenting in telling Jennings, “It’s just the facts”:
JENNINGS: –I’m saying, I’m listening to Democratic arguments about most policy issues, and I’m looking at Democratic energy, and it mostly has to do with things to do with immigrants, illegal and some legal, and things to do with government bureaucrats. And right now, you’re putting–
COLLINS: Yes, but–
JENNINGS: –one of your constituencies out of business.
COLLINS: Can I say one thing, which is that people who are in the country illegally cannot get these subsidies that we’re talking about.
FINNEY: Correct.
JENNINGS: Sure they can. Sure they can.
FINNEY: No, they can’t.
COLLINS: No, they can’t. It’s–
JENNINGS: Sure they can. When they–
FINNEY: They can’t.
COLLINS: It’s federal law, Scott, as you know.
JENNINGS: Who — who do you think–
COLLINS: But–
FINNEY: –Scott.
JENNINGS: –who do you think pays when they go to the emergency room? It’s the Medicaid emergency program.
COLLINS: Scott, going to the emergency room is not getting an Obamacare subsidy. And the emergency room is not health care, Scott.
JENNINGS: You guys are conflating. You guys are conflating these issues.
FINNEY: No, we’re not, Scott.
JENNINGS: You’re conflating these issues.
FINNEY: You’re conflating, and you’re being dishonest with the American people about this.
JENNINGS: The subsidies are a separate issue.
FINNEY: Because you know it’s unpopular.
JENNINGS: The Medicaid program cuts are a different thing.
COLLINS: Right, but I’m talking about subsidies.
FINNEY: No.
JENNINGS: Medicaid and the Obamacare stuff are two different issues.
FINNEY: Correct.
JENNINGS: And I said, the subsidies may get negotiated over time. But what Democrats want to do is roll back what the Republican Medicaid reforms were.
They want — look, I don’t understand why everybody’s so mad. For time in memoriam, Democrats have argued that it’s good, it’s good for illegal immigrants to get Medicaid. Every candidate for president in 2020 raised their hand for it. In the big, beautiful bill debate, they argued it was good policy. I can’t believe there’s an about-face–
COLLINS: Yes, but Scott–
JENNINGS: –in the Democratic Party on it today.
FINNEY: Well–
COLLINS: Hold on. I got a question for Karen.
FINNEY: Sure.
[21:15:00]
COLLINS: But Scott, I will say, people who are in the country illegally also can’t get Medicaid. That’s federal law.
JENNINGS: Sure they can. Sure they can.
COLLINS: They can’t get Medicaid, Medicare–
JENNINGS: They also can’t register to vote.
COLLINS: –Obamacare subsidies.
JENNINGS: They also can’t register to vote. But we just found one in Maryland who was running the Des Moines school system.
FINNEY: Oh, one? Oh, my God, one? Scott?
JENNINGS: I mean, I’m telling you, you guys say these things can’t happen, and then they happen.
COLLINS: I’m just saying, Scott, it’s–
FINNEY: Oh, my God, you’re so–
COLLINS: –but I’m just saying it’s federal law.
JENNINGS: I mean, you can run cover–
COLLINS: And they’re not trying to roll back–
JENNINGS: –you can run cover for it if you want. But they do get federal tax money.
COLLINS: And they’re not trying to roll back federal law.
FINNEY: I’m not–
COLLINS: It’s just the facts.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
