Breaking News from Pod Save America - Republicans EXPOSED In Interview Trying To Defend Shutdown

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

The government is officially shut down! Dan Pfeiffer and Jon Lovett react to the news — and to Republicans scrambling to spin it as Democrats’ fault (it’s not). Get 50% off your new system. Visit https://simplisafe.com/crooked. There’s no safe like SimpliSafe®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You talking to me? Kayak, got that right. Hey, everybody. The government is shut down. We have a shutdown, Dan. A shutdown. That happened? Republicans are claiming Democrats are fighting for health care, for illegal immigrants, but they're having trouble defending that when asked about it by reporters. Here is Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, being interrogated by CNN's Caitlin Collins. We're rolling the greatest hits on our social media. Yeah, I'm just saying that the point about giving people who are here illegally health care is not exactly what is in their proposal. No, it is 100% what

immigrants who have legal status and you're just disagreeing on who's eligible. I looked at it actually because I was curious about your argument yesterday. You should study the CBO's analysis that they just put out a few weeks ago. Yeah, I saw that about the 1.2 million people. You're basically arguing about who has legal status, people who are seeking refugee or seeking asylum. No, I'm making sure that we are making sure in our provisions that we signed in a law have ensured that health care benefits go only to eligible U.S. citizens. Chuck Schumer's proposal. Federal law was not being enforced. That's the whole point. We had to fine-tune that. that so that we could strengthen the health care program. That's what we did.

All right, Dan, let's just start with your overall reaction to where we're at in the shutdown fight. It seems like the Republicans, as you can see in this clip, are desperate, desperate, desperate to hang on to this, very easily debunked lie about this idea that somehow this entire shutdown is that the Democrats want to shut the government down to give free health care to undocumented people when, in fact, the Affordable Care Act, says in law, in writing, that you absolutely cannot do that. We know because we're around when that provision was put in the law. And with like for all of their swagger and confidence in the pages of Punchbowl and Politico, the way the Republicans are acting suggests they think they may

have a weak hand. Because if you have a strong hand, then you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't dine out on this lie the whole time. It's what they've said is what J.D. Van said on the White House lawn when they were trying to defend this decision to go to a shutdown. And he even entertains when he's asked about this. Like, they may have some good ideas, but we're not going to allow them to force us to fund health care for undocumented immigrants. And it's completely indefensible. It's just not true to the point where people were like kind of casting about being like, there's not even a rationale for it. Like usually there's some, some fig leaf, some sort of tiny bit of purchase somewhere on the, like that they could kind of claim some way of of of, of, of, of,

what they're saying, but that was not available to them, which is why you have these back in force where Republicans have just not been able to say what they're even talking about. This is clearly bothering J.D. Vance, who decided to do an interview where he explained how Democrats are calling us liars, but it's actually a fact that Republicans are offering here about what Democrats are trying to do. And so here's J.D. Vance coming in like an intellectual Zamboni to try to defend this claim. Yeah, so this is a Democrat talking point. They say we're not actually trying to give health care benefits to illegal aliens,

and here's why it's not true. There are two Biden-era programs that explicitly gave the taxpayer health care money to illegal aliens that we turned off when President Trump took over in January. Program number one is there's a lot of emergency health care at hospitals that are provided to illegal aliens. That was funded by the federal government. We turned off that funding because, of course, we want American citizens to benefit from those hospital services, not to be taxed, and then to have those hospital services go to illegal aliens. So he then goes on to describe the way in which other legal immigrants are also allowed access to health care.

So let's start with this. There was a law. It's true. and it says that if you arrive at a hospital and you're in an emergency, the hospital has to treat you. This was a law that was designed to stop hospitals from dumping patients on other hospitals, from refusing care for people who are in desperate need because they were checking to see if they could afford to pay first, if they had insurance, whatever. That law was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986.

It has been the law since 1986. It is a good law because we as a society do not think that hospitals should check to see if someone can afford to pay a bill before saving their lives. Like that seems to be a pretty reasonable position, a humane position for a society as wealthy as ours. And it is true. That means that if someone is an undocumented person and they show up at a hospital, that hospital will treat them. That was true during Biden. That was true during Trump. That was true during Obama.

That was true during Bush. It's been true during every single previous administration. I have no idea. I don't really understand what he's talking about in his first point. Now, his second point is that a whole bunch of people gained access, a whole bunch of undocumented immigrants gained access to health care. But that's actually not about undocumented people gaining health care. That's about them trying to say that the Biden administration gave people status it shouldn't have.

he's even he's basically admitting here that what they're describing is legal immigrants gaining access to health care right as far as i can tell that's what is like he may be referencing some covid era program that helps provide funding hospital but that did not that is not just for undocumented people it's for the uninsured and right in a normal society the way you deal with this is because it costs money to treat people and if people cannot pay their bills then everyone else ends up paying it raises the cost for everyone which is the argument for, oh, I don't know, universal health care, right? Not making it easier to leave dying people on a street corner.

Like, it's an insane thing to do it. And look, I don't want us to get, like, wrapped around the axle, kind of untangling JD Vance's lies. But there's, like, a deeper lie that's actually, like, broadly accepted as part of our politics, right? Like, the whole idea of what they're doing here is they've made this broader claim that undocumented immigrants come to our country and take taxpayer-funded, funded services, right, that they don't pay for and they sap our taxpayer money and they're

basically subsidized by the taxpayers. That is false. It's just not true because undocumented people who are consigned to second class status in our society and don't, can't call the police if they're taken advantage of by an employer, can't, can't sue, can't seek the protection of law enforcement, they're very vulnerable in their professional and personal lives and in our society. They also pay a ton of taxes that they can't recoup because the law is very clear. You don't get ACA if you're undocumented. You don't get Social Security if you're undocumented. You don't get Medicare if you're undocumented.

So actually, if you look at what happens to undocumented people when they work in the United States of America, they subsidize American taxpayers. They subsidize our health care because they pay into our system but can never. recoup it. And that is just completely lost in all of this. And it's not the most important point, but like that's the deeper lie that they're all kind of promulgating. Yeah, it's interesting watching. I've watched a number of the Republicans this morning go out on TV. There's another version of this, because obviously each of them, they did this on right wing media. They finally had to confront real reporters. They got pushed back. They look stupid. I think many of them just believe that that was

actually the case without fully understanding because Trump said it or Stephen Miller said it. So they all then went to their policy people and said, make this thing I have to say. true. And so this is what J.D. Vance's version of it. I've seen some members of the House and Senate come back and basically say that what Democrats are doing, what they're demanding is a full repeal of the big, beautiful bill, which means all the things they did to tighten eligibility in a bullshit way, but to try to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, which some of that waste fraud abuse could be from ineligible people, which could include able-bodied males being on there, as they say, or undocumented people.

being on Medicaid who shouldn't be on Medicaid, but because we want to restore some of those cuts. Therefore, we want to undo all of the eligibility things. Therefore, somehow possibly some undocumented people could possibly maybe one day end up on Medicaid, even though that was not a real problem before. And so they're all like this is a, they're all trying to justify a lie. And the fact that they feel the need to justify it, I think is somewhat telling of where they see their position in this battle, you know, 11 hours in or wherever we are. Yeah, the policies of the big beautiful bill are deeply unpopular.

The most cynical version that I've seen is them claiming that because Democrats are trying to undo the, the trillion dollars in cuts, that means they're also trying to undo the $50 billion rural hospital fund that was stuck in the bill to make up for in a small, tiny way and insignificant way, the vast cuts that they're against the rural hospital fund. That is like so cynical and such bullshit. But yeah, their position on health care is deeply unpopular. If they cannot defend the bill, I think a lot of them truly, to your point, actually don't know what they voted for and believe the talking points that they've been given or haven't interrogated them at all. But they cannot defend their health care policy. And so they are attacking Democrats in this way. Now, one last moment. Can I make one small, very petty point on this?

Please. As of today, I think about 750,000 government employees have been furloughed. One government employee who was not furloughed, clearly based on that JD Vance interview was J.D. Vance's makeup artist. because that was very, very, that was a heavy hand in the eye makeup there. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder if that makeup artist isn't a essential employee because he is doing it himself. I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. Yeah, look, it is worth saying that like a lot of people have been furloughed today. Like shutdowns are serious. It is serious. What is happening. And I like, look, I continue to feel like Democrats did not have any really good options. I think going along with the CR was a terrible option. I think trying to fight this shutdown on really any of the different ways we could have shut it was a tough decision to make.

But the more Republicans lie about what they did in their health care bill, the more I feel like it is justified to have fought this fight on health care. Because, yes, like they are waging war on democracy. One of the ways they're doing it is by just being fucking liars all the time. This video is brought to you by Simply Safe home security. John, do you think Simply Safe proactive protection is good enough that it could have stopped Joe Biden from stealing the 2020 election? That's what Sidney Powell tells me. That's a joke. No, probably not.

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social media team has been trolling Democrats, and they've been doing it with sombreros, mariachi music, and mustaches. And Hakeem Jeffries was asked about this. He responded. And now the Trump social media team is unsurprisingly doubling down. Let's roll the clip. It's a disgusting video, and we're going to continue to make clear. Bigotry will get you nowhere. We are fighting to protect the health care. of the American. Now, Dan, that's not funny. That video is not funny.

I'm not laughing. It's not fucking funny. All right. I will say, like, there's a lesson to me in this, which is you get further making fun of Donald Trump than you do being outraged by Donald Trump. You get further by making him seem like a clown than you do when you take any. Any of his, and they are like, you know, bigoted and incendiary and all the ways in which it's wrong. That's all, of course, true. But like, when you start crossing the Delaware over it, like when you start writing federalist papers about it, it just makes it easier.

It makes you a bigger target. And it is just funny. It is funny for how to take somebody criticizing you very seriously about something you did and doing it to him while he's making the criticism. It just does. It just works. It just works. Yeah, I mean, it is, like, he is trolling. Yeah.

And you don't have to, like, don't be trolled, right? Don't feed the trolls. Just kind of let it go. It was a, they did this. Trump put out Trump 20208 hats during the meeting. He's trying to distract for the main thing. And so the goal of this shutdown is for Democrats to substantively try to get the Affordable Care Act subsidies extended. So 15 million people don't get huge premium increases.

From a political perspective, it's just a show. show people that we are fighting to lower health care costs. And so every moment you're talking about a video or the Trump 20208 hats, you're not using the moment you have to deliver the message you need to deliver. And so my advice to anyone is just, you just have to ignore it. Or poke fun, make fun of it, poke fun back. Make your own video, right? Do something like that.

Or like, you know, say like, I don't care. He could put me in a mariachi head. He could put me in a mustache and give me a guitar. As long as I'm talking about reducing people's health care and fighting what they're doing, I don't mind. He can put me in any kind of video he wants, but we're going to keep delivering the mess we're doing. I don't really care what he does. Like, don't let it, you know, don't let him see a sweat. I just, uh, uh, but, um, and I just, again, it's not funny. We didn't find it funny. I have not laughed for one second. We haven't laughed about it. And I'll tell you what else is in

a laughing matter, Dan. The need to build a progressive media ecosystem to go up against the right. We have got to build an alternative. We have to get good information in front of people that breaks down what's happening. That's what we're doing at this Ponsave America channel so you can subscribe. You can even become a paid subscriber and get a bunch of content that's just for the true fans. But either way, please share this video, subscribe to our channel, like this video. It really does genuinely help us get this in front of more people. We will continue to provide updates because the shutdown.

means that the politics are moving pretty quick and all the time. And with that, Dan Piper, thank you so much. And see you at the next mariachi concert. Bye, everyone.