House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) made multiple false statements on President Donald Trump’s economy and the Republicans’ proposed changes to Medicaid and Obamacare spending, prompting a fact-check from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Speaking on the Mornings with Zerlina radio show last Thursday, Jeffries repeated the already-debunked lie that “about 13.7 million people will be flown off their health care” due to the reconciliation bill the House passed last month, which is now under the consideration of the Senate.
Jeffries claimed:
Well, it’s a reckless extreme budget that Republicans are trying to jam down the throats of the American people, lifting up a whole host of right wing ideas that aren’t designed to make life better for the American people, but actually will make things worse for the American people right at the top,” the left-wing congressman said. “This is the largest cut to health care in American history. About 13.7 million people will be flown off their health care, both because of the attack on Medicaid, as well as the attack on the Affordable Care Act that is in this bill at the same time.
Jeffries went on to allege that “people are going to die” if the budget passes the Senate. As if that wasn’t enough for these extremists.”
Despite his outlandish claims about the bill — which found $880 billion in savings by making various changes and cuts to Medicaid — the New York Times had already admitted that the 13.7 million figure was exaggerated by millions.
The outlet reported on May 13 that the “real number” of Americans set to lose their health insurance under the new proposed budget “is about 8.6 million,” though dozens of left-wing lawmakers — including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Patty Murray (D-WA), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) — have all repeated the falsehood.
Proposed changes to the taxpayer-funded healthcare system include increased checks to verify eligibility for Medicaid, as the program suffers from massive waste, fraud, and abuse.
According to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), over 1.4 million illegal aliens are on Medicaid.
A recent study found that Medicaid doled out $1.1 trillion in improper payments over the last decade, Breitbart News reported.
Jeffries continued, “Of course, costs haven’t gone down. They’re going up. Inflation is on the way up, stock market is collapsing. They’re crashing the economy in real time, driving us toward a recession. Interest rates remain stubbornly high. They haven’t.”
Those claims are easily debunked by recent numbers from multiple outlets, including a Breitbart News report revealing that core inflation has fallen to the lowest rate in four years.
According to USA Today, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows that inflation eased to a 4-year low in April as Trump’s tariffs took effect.
Axios reported on May 15 that “hard data” suggests the fears of tariff-driven inflation and recession from the Democrats “may be overblown.”
As Yahoo Finance reported on May 13, the price of eggs “tanked” by 12.7 percent on a monthly basis in April — its largest month-over-month drop since March 1984.
After pointing out the aforementioned numbers to Breitbart News, NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella stated, “Hakeem Jeffries treats the truth like a speed bump: inconvenient, but easy enough to roll right over.”
“The truth is, the economy is booming under President Trump and Republicans while House Democrat have no message other than pathetic fear-mongering and distractions from their failures,” he added of the progressive leader.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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