Steve Bannon, former architect of the MAGA movement turned podcaster, warned that Republicans making cuts to Medicaid would affect members of Donald Trump’s fan club.
On the Thursday episode of War Room, while gushing over massive government spending cuts, Bannon warned that cutting Medicaid specifically would prove unpopular among the working-class members of Trump’s base, who make up some of the 80 million people who get their health care through that program.
“Medicaid, you got to be careful, because a lot of MAGA’s on Medicaid. I’m telling you, if you don’t think so, you are deeeeeead wrong,” Bannon said. “Medicaid is going to be a complicated one. Just can’t take a meat ax to it, although I would love to.”
Republicans’ nascent budget blueprints this week contained a proposal for the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees Medicaid, to reduce the deficit by at least $880 billion from 2025 to 2034.
The gargantuan cuts would help Republicans pay to extend Trump’s 2017 tax plan, lightening the load for the very rich at the expense of the poor.
The House GOP plan would direct several congressional committees to find at least $1.5 trillion in savings across their programs. Bannon didn’t see that working out, saying that there was “confusion and mayhem” on Capitol Hill.
“Show me the trillion dollars in cuts. I don’t want a $2 trillion deficit. I want to see it cut in half. How’d you do it?” Bannon said. “What they’re talking about, the 1.5 trillion over 10 years, that’s $150 billion a year. Now, I realize this may be taken differently, but it’s $150 billion. It’s not gonna work
And to back it up, if you got the C.R. on the 14th. You gotta fund the government going forward, or maybe not, but I don’t see ’em shutting down President Trump’s government in his first 100 days,” Bannon said, referring to the government spending deadline on March 14.
“It’s—how could we possibly have a $2 trillion deficit; where are the DOGE cuts? We need ’em all. They’ve had at least enough time to identify at least the waste fraud abuse in all these different organizations. It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Bannon continued.
“I think it’s generally confusion and mayhem on Capitol Hill. But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s some logic here, and maybe they’re making some progress on this. But until we see the math, and I mean hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts, hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts, and stop whining about entitlements. Get into that discretionary spending. Get into the Pentagon.”
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