Good Morning America cohost and former Clinton White House official George Stephanopoulos parroted Democratic talking points in an interview with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), blaming Republicans for the government shutdown hours after Senate Democrats rejected a bill that would have kept the government open.
“The Democratic proposal is designed to prevent millions of Americans from losing their health insurance, losing Medicaid coverage, or paying higher health care premiums. Why are you against that?” Stephanopoulos asked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) on Wednesday.
“That’s an absurd statement,” Johnson replied. “Forty-four Senate Democrats voted to reject a clean, nonpartisan continuing funding resolution to keep the United States government open. The Democrats said, instead, that they wanted to give health care to illegal aliens instead of keeping critical services provided for the American people.”
The exchange comes after nearly every Senate Democrat on Tuesday voted against a continuing resolution to temporarily extend current government funding to provide time for negotiations, causing the legislation to fail. Only Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.) and Catherine Cortez-Masto (Nevada) voted with Republicans, as did Sen. Angus King, a Maine Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) was the only Republican to defect.
Stephanopoulos, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, ignored several details surrounding Democrats’ health care proposal. He didn’t acknowledge, for example, that the deal includes an attempt to extend subsidies created for the long-past COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats already extended those subsidies once through their Inflation Reduction Act, but gave them an expiration date at the end of this year to drive down the legislation’s estimated costs.
Stephanopoulos also falsely suggested that illegal immigrants would not receive health care funding through the Democrats’ proposal.
“Here are the facts. The proposal does not provide health care for illegal immigrants,” Stephanopoulos said. “The Democratic bill does not make them eligible.”
In reality, hospitals can receive Medicaid reimbursements for providing certain emergency treatments for illegal immigrants. Republicans’ tax bill, signed in July by President Donald Trump, decreased how much providers can recoup—saving an estimated $28 billion through 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office—but Democrats aim to leverage the shutdown to reverse that.
In response to Stephanopoulos’s spin, Johnson clarified that the Democrats’ proposal “unwinds the changes that Republicans put into the Big Beautiful Bill. That has been very successful in shoring up Medicaid for the people who are actually eligible to receive it.”
Soon after the interview, Johnson squarely blamed Democrats for causing the shutdown.
“Democrats in Congress have dragged our country into another reckless shutdown to satisfy their far-left base,” Johnson said during a press conference. “Whether or not the government remains open or reopens is entirely up to them.”
Stephanopoulos, who earns around $25 million a year, has gotten ABC into hot water before. Trump sued the company after Stephanopoulos falsely stated that the president was “liable for rape.” To resolve the suit, ABC agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s future presidential library and to reimburse the president $1 million in legal fees.
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