The president is telling a brazen lie about healthcare for undocumented immigrants to distract from the real-world consequences of his new law. Here’s the truth.
If you’re a Republican voter, you deserve to know the truth. President Trump is not being honest with you about the recent government shutdown. He’s telling a bold-faced lie designed to stoke fear and shift blame, and it’s a disservice to the millions of Americans who put their trust in him.
On Thursday, President Trump claimed that restoring healthcare subsidies cut in his new law would mean handing over trillions of dollars to undocumented immigrants. “We are not going to spend $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion on healthcare for people who came into our country illegally,” he declared. “Many of them from prisions and many are drug dealers and murderers, 11,888 murderers. We are not doing that.”
Let’s be crystal clear: That is a lie.
The president is deliberately misleading his most loyal supporters, and it’s crucial to understand why. The lie is a smokescreen to hide the real impact of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a massive tax and spending package he signed into law on July 4, 2025. This law delivered huge tax cuts but also carved deep into programs that millions of Americans rely on, including Medicaid and SNAP.
The Republican-controlled Congressional Budget Office estimates that the law will cause 10.9 million Americans to lose their health insurance coverage. Now, with the government in a shutdown, the debate is raging over whether to reverse some of these painful healthcare cuts and extend subsidies that make insurance affordable.
Instead of defending the merits of his policy, President Trump has invented a villain. He’s trying to make this fight about “illegal aliens” receiving “free healthcare,” a claim that has no basis in reality.
Here are the hard facts:
- Undocumented immigrants do not qualify for ACA subsidies. Federal law has always prohibited them from receiving these benefits. They cannot purchase insurance on the healthcare marketplace, even with their own money.
- The new law didn’t change this. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” further restricted healthcare eligibility for some lawfully present immigrants, like refugees and asylees, but it did nothing to alter the rules for undocumented immigrants because they were already excluded.
- Funding for emergency care is a separate issue. The only federal healthcare funding that can go toward undocumented immigrants is through Emergency Medicaid. This is a long-standing program that reimburses hospitals for providing emergency services to anyone, regardless of their immigration status, as required by law. This program accounts for less than 1% of all Medicaid spending.
In short, the president has fabricated a crisis to distract from the consequences of his own legislation. He is conflating two entirely separate issues to manipulate public opinion. This shutdown isn’t about giving healthcare to undocumented immigrants; it’s about whether to restore coverage for millions of American citizens who are projected to lose it.
This tactic isn’t just dishonest; it’s a profound betrayal of the people who voted for him. By peddling falsehoods, President Trump is preventing an honest conversation about the future of American healthcare. His supporters, who are directly affected by these policy changes, deserve to have a leader who will level with them, not one who resorts to lies and cheap scare tactics.
The recent election results in Virginia and New Jersey, where Democrats made significant gains, suggest that the American people are tired of the division and blame. Polls indicate that a majority of Americans blame President Trump and the Republican party for the shutdown. It seems the public is beginning to see through the deception.
Republican voters have every right to expect honesty and integrity from their leaders. Instead, they are being fed a narrative that is demonstrably false. The question now is, how long will they allow themselves to be misled?