CBS’s Margaret Brennan butted heads with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Sunday’s installment of Face the Nation over the proposed tax cuts in what has been dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The proposed cuts mentioned in the segment were regarding ending Medicaid and S.N.A.P. fraud, as well as cutting back on erroneous spending by government agencies.
Brennan, obviously uninformed and uninterested in being corrected about her misconceptions, completely either ignored Johnson’s explanations or was too married to the Democratic Party talking points on the bill.
The segment began with Brennan interrogating Johnson on what exactly would be cut and why. According to the Democrat-backed KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation), 200,000 people in his state would lose Medicaid coverage. “How do you defend that to your constituents?” she chided.
Johnson explained that these cuts exist to end Medicaid and S.N.A.P. fraud, and that many people are taking advantage of these programs, which take from the individuals who actually need them:
[We are] working on fraud, waste, and abuse, and everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that's a responsibility of Congress. Just in Medicaid, for example, you’ve got 1.4 million illegal aliens receiving those benefits. That is not what Medicaid is intended for. It's intended for vulnerable populations; for young, single, pregnant women and the elderly and disabled and people who desperately need those resources.
Despite the fact that this explanation was common sense, and seems like it should be a bipartisan issue, Brennan tried to correct Johnson, reminding him that illegal immigrants weren’t eligible for programs like Medicaid. She failed to realize she made the same exact point as Johnson was, which was that illegal immigrants should not be able to partake in federal relief programs but still have, in fact, received money from them.
Brennan also tried to pit Johnson against his colleague, Republican Senator Josh Hawley (MO), saying that the Senator had expressed strong dissent regarding the bill. Johnson explained, once again, that there should not be anything controversial about this legislation, since all it is doing is funneling funds away from the people abusing the system toward people who actually need it, like the elderly and disabled (Click “expand”):
BRENNAN: Well, one of your Republican colleagues over in the Senate has been very vocal about his concern in regard to what you're doing to Medicaid. Josh Hawley has been arguing, “It is morally wrong and politically suicidal to slash health insurance for the working poor.”
He said the cost sharing language will force people at or just over the federal poverty level to pay as much as $35 for a medical visit, which means working people will pay more. How do you defend that? Because you know in the Senate they are going to make changes to this.
JOHNSON: My friend Josh Hawley is a fiscal conservative, as I am. We don't want to slash benefits and again, I make this very clear, we are not cutting Medicaid, we are not cutting S.N.A.P. We’re working in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse. S.N.A.P., for example, listen to the statistics; in 2024, over $11 billion in S.N.A.P. payments were erroneous.
She again tried to suggest Johnson was out to harm his constituents (Click “expand”):
BRENNAN: – Louisiana is like the second largest recipient of food stamps in the country, sir. So, do you think–
JOHNSON: – Let me explain it, Margaret, let me explain it. The states– the states are not properly administering this because they don't have enough skin in the game. So what we’ve done in the bill is add some– just a modest state sharing component so that they’ll pay attention to that, so we can reduce fraud. Why? Again, so that it is preserved for the people that need it the most. This is common sense, Margaret. It's good government and everybody on both sides of the aisle should agree to that.
BRENNAN: Well, Senator Hawley objects to that cost sharing language.
Brennan, during the almost five minute long debate, refused to concede that Johnson was, in fact, making sense, and that the policies outlined in the bill are beneficial to Americans. She seemed to only cared about winning the argument rather than reporting the actual realities of the situation to the American people.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read.
CBS’s Face The Nation
May 25, 2025
10:36 AM EST
(...)
MARGARET BRENNAN: But back to your end of the– of the deal here. For this tax relief, you talked about the cuts to pay for it all. You are eliminating subsidized federal student loans; so the government will no longer cover the interest on debt while borrowers in school, you’re eliminating 500 billion in clean energy subsidies, and you’re terminating early tax breaks for electric vehicles. Alongside that, you’re carrying out about a trillion in reductions to Medicaid and food stamps. We looked at your home state and the projection is that nearly 200,000 Louisianans will lose their Medicaid coverage because of this. How do you defend that to your constituents?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: We have not cut Medicaid and we have not cut S.N.A.P. What we’re doing, Margaret, is working on fraud, waste, and abuse, and everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that's a responsibility of Congress. Just in Medicaid, for example, you’ve got 1.4 million illegal aliens receiving those benefits. That is not what Medicaid is intended for. It's intended for vulnerable populations; for young, single, pregnant women and the elderly and disabled and people who desperately need those resources.
Right now, they are being drained by fraud, waste, and abuse. You got about 4.8 million people on Medicaid right now, nationwide, who are able-bodied workers, young men for example, who are not working, who are taking advantage of the system. If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system, you’re cheating the system. And no one in the country believes that that's right.
So, here's a moral component to what we are doing, and when you make young men work, it's good for them, it’s good for their dignity, it’s good for their self-worth, and it's good for the community that they live in.
BRENNAN: Sure, sure. But- in- first of all, undocumented immigrants, you know, are not eligible for food stamps or Medicaid. Some lawfully present –
JOHNSON: – And yet they’re receiving them, that’s the problem–
BRENNAN: – immigrants are. So the 190,000 Louisianans that are projected by KFF as losing their Medicaid, your position is they were just lazy, not working? That they were undocumented? What about them? How do you defend that they will be losing their benefits?
JOHNSON: No. What we're talking about, again, is able-bodied workers, many of whom are refusing to work because they are gaming the system, and when we make them work, it will be better for everybody, a win, win, win for all. By the way, the work requirements, Margaret, is not some onerous, burdensome thing. It's a minimum of 20 hours a week. You could either be working, or be in a job program, a job training program, or volunteering in your community. This is not some– some onerous thing. This is common sense. And when the American people understand what we are doing here, they applaud it. This is a wildly popular thing. Because we have to preserve the programs. What we're doing is strengthening Medicaid and S.N.A.P. so that they can exist and that they will be there for the people that desperately need it the most and it's not taken advantage of. And this is something that– that everybody in Congress, Republicans and Democrats, should agree to.
BRENNAN: Well, one of your Republican colleagues over in the Senate has been very vocal about his concern in regard to what you're doing to Medicaid. Josh Hawley has been arguing, “It is morally wrong and politically suicidal to slash health insurance for the working poor.”
He said the cost sharing language will force people at or just over the federal poverty level to pay as much as $35 for a medical visit, which means working people will pay more. How do you defend that? Because you know in the Senate they are going to make changes to this.
JOHNSON: My friend Josh Hawley is a fiscal conservative, as I am. We don't want to slash benefits and again, I make this very clear, we are not cutting Medicaid, we are not cutting S.N.A.P. We’re working in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse. S.N.A.P., for example, listen to the statistics; in 2024, over $11 billion in S.N.A.P. payments were erroneous. I mean, that’s a number that everyone acknowledges is real, it may be much higher than that–
BRENNAN: – Louisiana is like the second largest recipient of food stamps in the country, sir. So, do you think–
JOHNSON: – Let me explain it, Margaret, let me explain it. The states– the states are not properly administering this because they don't have enough skin in the game. So what we’ve done in the bill is add some– just a modest state sharing component so that they’ll pay attention to that, so we can reduce fraud. Why? Again, so that it is preserved for the people that need it the most. This is common sense, Margaret. It's good government and everybody on both sides of the aisle should agree to that.
BRENNAN: Well, Senator Hawley objects to that cost sharing language. He is the one leveraging that criticism. This is going to change, you know that, when it goes to the Senate. How do you– how do you put–
JOHNSON: Well– so I–
BRENNAN: –how do you put your Republicans up to have to defend these things when they are facing an election in 17 months.
JOHNSON: We got almost every vote in the House because we worked on it for more than a year in finding the exact balance of reforms to the programs so we can save them and secure them. I think– I think Senator Hawley will see that when he looks into the details of what we passed on Thursday. This is a big thing, it's a historic thing, once in a generation legislation. We call it the “One Big Beautiful Bill” because it's going to do so much and the America First agenda will be delivered for the people just as we promised. And look, I had lunch with my Senate Republican colleagues on Tuesday, their weekly luncheon, and I encouraged them to remember that we are one team, it's the Senate and the House Republicans together that will deliver this ball over the goal line, so to speak, and I encouraged them to make as few modifications as possible remembering that I have a delicate balance—
BRENNAN: Yeah.
JOHNSON: -- on our– a diverse Republican caucus over in the House.
(...)
