Talking Point vs. Truth

Erick Erickson on Oct 3, 2025

On Twitter, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted, "Let me be perfectly clear: Undocumented people CANNOT AND WILL NOT receive ACA premium tax credits BY LAW. PERIOD. This is a LIE from Republicans to divert attention from their shutdown. Republicans are refusing to lower healthcare costs for the American people." The capitalization was his. It is a talking point to distract from the truth.

CNN's Jake Tapper pointed out to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, "What you support does bring back funding for emergency Medicaid to hospitals, some of which does pay for undocumented immigrants and people who don't have health insurance. And also, there is this provision, and it's not about undocumented immigrants. It's about people with asylum seekers and people with temporary protected status, et cetera, et cetera. But about their ability to get Medicaid. So they're non-citizens, they're not undocumented. They're not illegal."

Those people with asylum and temporary protected status are the massive flood of immigrants former President Joe Biden allowed into the country from around the world while their claims were being considered. During President Donald Trump's first term, most of those people had to remain in other nations instead of flooding into the United States. As Tapper points out, those people would have their healthcare covered by what the Democrats want. Likewise, the Democrats would "bring back funding for emergency Medicaid to hospitals, some of which does pay for undocumented immigrants," also known as illegal aliens.

Congressman Ro Khanna of California went on Fox Business and admitted, "The amount of money that actually is going towards people who are undocumented is actually such a small portion of the Medicaid cuts or the Affordable Care Act ... Ninety to ninety-five percent of the money we are talking about is for American citizens." In other words, five to ten percent of the money we are talking about would go to pay for healthcare for illegal aliens.

On Twitter, the Senate Republicans tweeted, "Senator Hirono and Senate Democrats want to add $1.4 trillion to a clean spending bill so illegal aliens can have taxpayer-funded healthcare." Erik Wasson, the congressional reporter for Bloomberg, replied, "To be clear, the full $1.4 trillion they want isn't to boost healthcare for undocumented. It's a tiny fraction of that." In other words, there is funding for illegal aliens in the legislation.

Democrats and their fact-checking propagandists in the press insist there is no funding for illegal aliens in what Democrats want. The reality is that, yes, Democrats are wedded to the idea of paying for healthcare for illegal aliens. Put another way, it is a very small part of what they want, but big enough that they cannot bring themselves to give it up, despite Senator Schumer's spin.

Additionally, Democrats want to restore funding to National Public Radio and PBS. They will shut down the government to give white progressives NPR and illegal aliens taxpayer-funded healthcare. It is a remarkable divergence from common sense. It is also bad politics.

Democrats have insisted Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, the second coming of Hitler and an authoritarian dictator. But fund healthcare for illegal aliens and NPR for white progressives and Democrats will gladly fund his concentration camps. The Democratic Party has boxed itself in by dialing the rhetoric up to sixteen on a ten-point scale while demanding things that amount to a two.

In an alternate universe, the Democratic Party has shut down the government because the president has usurped the power of the purse and the taxing powers of Congress. He has applied tariffs against other countries, and those tariffs are harming Americans through high costs, a decline in business investment and both low wage growth and slow hirings in American corporations. Until Republicans stand up to the president on his use of Congress's taxing power, the government will stay shut down.

In this universe, Democrats have declared Trump to be Hitler, but if he makes permanent the temporary healthcare subsidies from COVID-19 that cover illegal aliens and restores funding for progressive television and radio stations, he can go back to Hitler-ing to his heart's content. The Democrats are a curiosity of incompetence.

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To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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