Early Wednesday evening on The Lead, CNN fact-checker and Canadian Daniel Dale teamed up with host Jake Tapper to engage in a sleight of hand to paint Republicans as liars in the government shutdown battle for arguing Democrats want to provide health care for illegal immigrants (which they do).
In essence, Dale told viewers both here and later on AC360 that those receiving free care are aren’t “illegal” because they had been processed and released into the country with a court date or outstanding asylum claim.
“So, is there any truth at all to what they’re saying? Well, CNN’s Daniel Dale is our resident fact checker. Daniel, tell us more about this claim that Republicans are making about what Democrats are fighting for here,” Tapper began.
Dale unsurprisingly declared this claim anywhere “from misleading to flat false” when what Democrats actually want is “an extension of enhanced federal subsidies for insurance purchased through the ObamaCare exchanges that’s scheduled to expire at year’s end.”
He went onto insist “[u]ndocumented people are banned from the ObamaCare exchanges entirely, so therefore they’re banned from the subsidies” as well as “federal Medicaid insurance plans, though some states do provide some state funded coverage”:
This led into a clip of Vance from Wednesday’s White House press briefing as a way of Dale to huff Vance lied about the Biden administration being the source of taxpayers picking up the tab for illegal immigrants when they flock to emergency rooms.
After insisting Ronald Reagan made it law, Dale argued taxpayer dollars for illegal immigrants to receive free hospital care is a good thing because “the federal money...goes to hospitals to help them cover the cost of the E.R. visit” and thus not actually “comprehensive health care for undocumented people.”
He then insisted all Democrats want is to make sure hospitals are properly reimbursed...which would mean they incentivize illegal immigrants to become on a first-name basis with ER nurses.
Tapper then cued up a Vance clip himself: “The Vice President also referred to some immigrants as illegal aliens, even though they’re not quite that. They have permission to be in this country.”
Vance then explained what happened with the Biden administration granting millions of illegal immigrants parole and “asylum claims to people who weren’t really claiming asylum and when they waved the magic wand of amnesty, giving millions of people legal status even though they were in the country illegally, they also gave those people access to health care benefits.”
Tapper muddied the waters: “So, amnesty often refers to giving people citizenship, and that’s not what the Biden administration did, but tell us more about what you found on this.”
Pearl-clutching Dale declared it “is just not right” to refer to anyone who came across the border (illegally) as such, but rather “legal migrants.”
Check out how he wrapped up by deeming it “simply a fact” Republicans are lying when any layman’s understanding of those who came across as part of the Biden border crisis aren’t exactly on the pathway to citizenship:
You can’t make up stuff like that, so it is true that this big Trump bill took away some combination of ObamaCare subsidies and medicare eligibility from various immigrant groups, including many people with TPS or with humanitarian parole. It is true Democrats are trying to reverse those cuts among the broader cuts for Americans and other immigrants. But again, in these in this case, I think it’s important to emphasize that these immigrants with parole, with TPS have permission to be in the U.S. The Vice President saying it’s his opinion that they shouldn’t have been given that permission, but they have been given it. That’s simply a fact.
Earlier in the show, Tapper had let this slip in an interview with Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK):
“[I]n the one Big Beautiful Bill, it has a line saying cut and fraud, waste and abuse, specifically saying that Medicaid and Medicare and Medicare benefits cannot go to an illegal alien. Underneath this CR, that is going to cost the taxpayers $1.5 trillion to keep government open for four weeks, it’s specifically by line — exes that part out, so it’s more than just reimbursement. This is actually allows them to have Medicaid or Medicare inside if it’s a state funded or if it’s federal funded, so it goes much further than just reimbursement to hospitals,” Mullin added, referring to the Democrat counterproposal.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from October 1, click here.
