CBS’s Margaret Brennan butted heads with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Sunday’s installment of Face the Nation over the proposed tax cuts in what has been dubbed the “One Huge Stunning Invoice Act.” The proposed cuts talked about within the section had been relating to ending Medicaid and S.N.A.P. fraud, in addition to chopping again on faulty spending by authorities companies.
Brennan, clearly uninformed and bored with being corrected about her misconceptions, fully both ignored Johnson’s explanations or was too married to the Democratic Occasion speaking factors on the invoice.
The section started with Brennan interrogating Johnson on what precisely could be minimize and why. In keeping with the Democrat-backed KFF (previously the Kaiser Household Basis), 200,000 folks in his state would lose Medicaid protection. “How do you defend that to your constituents?” she chided.
Johnson defined that these cuts exist to finish Medicaid and S.N.A.P. fraud, and that many individuals are benefiting from these packages, which take from the people who really need them:
[We are] engaged on fraud, waste, and abuse, and everybody in Louisiana and across the nation understands that is a duty of Congress. Simply in Medicaid, for instance, you’ve acquired 1.4 million unlawful aliens receiving these advantages. That’s not what Medicaid is meant for. It is meant for susceptible populations; for younger, single, pregnant ladies and the aged and disabled and individuals who desperately want these assets.
Even though this clarification was frequent sense, and looks like it ought to be a bipartisan problem, Brennan tried to appropriate Johnson, reminding him that unlawful immigrants weren’t eligible for packages like Medicaid. She failed to appreciate she made the identical actual level as Johnson was, which was that unlawful immigrants shouldn’t be in a position to partake in federal reduction packages however nonetheless have, actually, acquired cash from them.
Brennan additionally tried to pit Johnson towards his colleague, Republican Senator Josh Hawley (MO), saying that the Senator had expressed sturdy dissent relating to the invoice. Johnson defined, as soon as once more, that there shouldn’t be something controversial about this laws, since all it’s doing is funneling funds away from the folks abusing the system towards individuals who really need it, just like the aged and disabled (Click on “broaden”):
BRENNAN: Effectively, certainly one of your Republican colleagues over within the Senate has been very vocal about his concern in regard to what you are doing to Medicaid. Josh Hawley has been arguing, “It’s morally unsuitable and politically suicidal to slash medical insurance for the working poor.”
He mentioned the fee sharing language will pressure folks at or simply over the federal poverty degree to pay as a lot as $35 for a medical go to, which suggests working folks pays extra. How do you defend that? As a result of you understand within the Senate they’ll make adjustments to this.
JOHNSON: My good friend Josh Hawley is a fiscal conservative, as I’m. We do not wish to slash advantages and once more, I make this very clear, we aren’t chopping Medicaid, we aren’t chopping S.N.A.P. We’re working within the parts of fraud, waste and abuse. S.N.A.P., for instance, hearken to the statistics; in 2024, over $11 billion in S.N.A.P. funds had been faulty.
She once more tried to counsel Johnson was out to hurt his constituents (Click on “broaden”):
BRENNAN: – Louisiana is just like the second largest recipient of meals stamps within the nation, sir. So, do you suppose–
JOHNSON: – Let me clarify it, Margaret, let me clarify it. The states– the states will not be correctly administering this as a result of they do not have sufficient pores and skin within the sport. So what we’ve executed within the invoice is add some– only a modest state sharing element in order that they’ll take note of that, so we will cut back fraud. Why? Once more, in order that it’s preserved for the those that want it probably the most. That is frequent sense, Margaret. It is good authorities and everyone on either side of the aisle ought to conform to that.
BRENNAN: Effectively, Senator Hawley objects to that value sharing language.
Brennan, through the virtually 5 minute lengthy debate, refused to concede that Johnson was, actually, making sense, and that the insurance policies outlined within the invoice are useful to Individuals. She appeared to solely cared about successful the argument reasonably than reporting the precise realities of the state of affairs to the American folks.
The transcript is under. Click on “broaden” to learn.
CBS’s Face The Nation
Could 25, 2025
10:36 AM EST
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MARGARET BRENNAN: However again to your finish of the– of the deal right here. For this tax reduction, you talked in regards to the cuts to pay for all of it. You’re eliminating backed federal pupil loans; so the federal government will now not cowl the curiosity on debt whereas debtors at school, you’re eliminating 500 billion in clear vitality subsidies, and also you’re terminating early tax breaks for electrical automobiles. Alongside that, you’re finishing up a couple of trillion in reductions to Medicaid and meals stamps. We checked out your own home state and the projection is that just about 200,000 Louisianans will lose their Medicaid protection due to this. How do you defend that to your constituents?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: We’ve got not minimize Medicaid and we’ve got not minimize S.N.A.P. What we’re doing, Margaret, is engaged on fraud, waste, and abuse, and everybody in Louisiana and across the nation understands that is a duty of Congress. Simply in Medicaid, for instance, you’ve acquired 1.4 million unlawful aliens receiving these advantages. That’s not what Medicaid is meant for. It is meant for susceptible populations; for younger, single, pregnant ladies and the aged and disabled and individuals who desperately want these assets.
Proper now, they’re being drained by fraud, waste, and abuse. You bought about 4.8 million folks on Medicaid proper now, nationwide, who’re able-bodied employees, younger males for instance, who will not be working, who’re benefiting from the system. If you’ll be able to work and also you refuse to take action, you might be defrauding the system, you’re dishonest the system. And nobody within the nation believes that that is proper.
So, this is an ethical element to what we’re doing, and once you make younger males work, it is good for them, it’s good for his or her dignity, it’s good for his or her self-worth, and it is good for the group that they reside in.
BRENNAN: Positive, positive. However- in- to start with, undocumented immigrants, you understand, will not be eligible for meals stamps or Medicaid. Some lawfully current –
JOHNSON: – And but they’re receiving them, that’s the issue–
BRENNAN: – immigrants are. So the 190,000 Louisianans which can be projected by KFF as shedding their Medicaid, your place is that they had been simply lazy, not working? That they had been undocumented? What about them? How do you defend that they are going to be shedding their advantages?
JOHNSON: No. What we’re speaking about, once more, is able-bodied employees, lots of whom are refusing to work as a result of they’re gaming the system, and after we make them work, it is going to be higher for everyone, a win, win, win for all. By the way in which, the work necessities, Margaret, shouldn’t be some onerous, burdensome factor. It is a minimal of 20 hours every week. You can both be working, or be in a job program, a job coaching program, or volunteering in your group. This isn’t some– some onerous factor. That is frequent sense. And when the American folks perceive what we’re doing right here, they applaud it. This can be a wildly standard factor. As a result of we’ve got to protect the packages. What we’re doing is strengthening Medicaid and S.N.A.P. in order that they’ll exist and that they are going to be there for the those that desperately want it probably the most and it is not taken benefit of. And that is one thing that– that everyone in Congress, Republicans and Democrats, ought to conform to.
BRENNAN: Effectively, certainly one of your Republican colleagues over within the Senate has been very vocal about his concern in regard to what you are doing to Medicaid. Josh Hawley has been arguing, “It’s morally unsuitable and politically suicidal to slash medical insurance for the working poor.”
He mentioned the fee sharing language will pressure folks at or simply over the federal poverty degree to pay as a lot as $35 for a medical go to, which suggests working folks pays extra. How do you defend that? As a result of you understand within the Senate they’ll make adjustments to this.
JOHNSON: My good friend Josh Hawley is a fiscal conservative, as I’m. We do not wish to slash advantages and once more, I make this very clear, we aren’t chopping Medicaid, we aren’t chopping S.N.A.P. We’re working within the parts of fraud, waste and abuse. S.N.A.P., for instance, hearken to the statistics; in 2024, over $11 billion in S.N.A.P. funds had been faulty. I imply, that’s a quantity that everybody acknowledges is actual, it could be a lot larger than that–
BRENNAN: – Louisiana is just like the second largest recipient of meals stamps within the nation, sir. So, do you suppose–
JOHNSON: – Let me clarify it, Margaret, let me clarify it. The states– the states will not be correctly administering this as a result of they do not have sufficient pores and skin within the sport. So what we’ve executed within the invoice is add some– only a modest state sharing element in order that they’ll take note of that, so we will cut back fraud. Why? Once more, in order that it’s preserved for the those that want it probably the most. That is frequent sense, Margaret. It is good authorities and everyone on either side of the aisle ought to conform to that.
BRENNAN: Effectively, Senator Hawley objects to that value sharing language. He’s the one leveraging that criticism. That is going to alter, you understand that, when it goes to the Senate. How do you– how do you place–
JOHNSON: Effectively– so I–
BRENNAN: –how do you place your Republicans as much as should defend this stuff when they’re dealing with an election in 17 months.
JOHNSON: We acquired virtually each vote within the Home as a result of we labored on it for greater than a 12 months find the precise steadiness of reforms to the packages so we will save them and safe them. I feel– I feel Senator Hawley will see that when he appears to be like into the small print of what we handed on Thursday. This can be a large factor, it is a historic factor, as soon as in a technology laws. We name it the “One Huge Stunning Invoice” as a result of it is going to take action a lot and the America First agenda shall be delivered for the folks simply as we promised. And look, I had lunch with my Senate Republican colleagues on Tuesday, their weekly luncheon, and I inspired them to do not forget that we’re one staff, it is the Senate and the Home Republicans collectively that may ship this ball over the objective line, so to talk, and I inspired them to make as few modifications as potential remembering that I’ve a fragile steadiness—
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JOHNSON: — on our– a various Republican caucus over within the Home.
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