Speaker Johnson Cut Off On MSNBC For Fact Check On Shutdown Cause

MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera cut off Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) during his weekly press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday to fact-check the top Republicans’ claims on the shutdown.

“A lot of talk about—they say that we’re making this up—this illegal aliens receiving taxpayer benefits. It’s a talking point, they said. I want to remind you of a couple of key facts. Everybody can remember, I think, back to 2020, in the presidential debate for all the candidates on the Democrat side. You might remember, famously, they were asked the question—raise your hand, they said on the stage—if you believe that illegal aliens should receive health care paid for by American taxpayers,” Johnson said, adding:

Every single one of them raised their hand to great applause in the audience from the Democrats who were there. Those hands included Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Now, what did they do? Did they follow through on that promise? Yeah, they absolutely did. Joe Biden used executive orders, and he expanded benefits—health care to illegal aliens—in his four-year term. That was an outrageous violation of the existing federal law.

“Okay, I want to pull out just to make sure we don’t offer misleading information when it comes to what the facts are and what the laws are,” Cabrera interjected, adding:

I can tell you that U.S. law prohibits undocumented immigrants from gaining federally subsidized health care, whether that’s Medicaid, Affordable Care Act, Children’s Health Insurance Program, or otherwise. It’s actually a 1996 law that establishes that, and the Democrats aren’t looking to change that law.

And as far as the Affordable Care Act subsidies, there is no access for undocumented immigrants to get Obamacare. That’s just the fact right now. Amy, I want to point out some additional polling we’re getting as the blame game continues. Americans are blaming Republicans and Trump more the longer this is playing out, as we’re seeing with this latest Washington Post polling. It shows the blame actually ticking up for Republicans and Trump, up to 47% on day one of the shutdown. Does that suggest the Trump strategy is maybe backfiring a little?

MSNBC’s Chris Jansing also cut into JD Vance’s comments on the shutdown on Wednesday for a similar fact check.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.