Exploring the Mass Deception and Propaganda Around That "The Shutdown was to Provide Healthcare for Illegal Immigrants" Talking Point
11/11/25. The shutdown appears poised to end. Some Democrats caved. (I think reasonably. I saw Angus King, one of the cavers, speak lucidly about this on Amanpour. (The video has not yet made it to YouTube.)
The talking point, that “the shutdown was to provide health care for undocumented immigrants” which the Republicans have uniformly going with for at least a month and a half, is simply a bold lie.
I explored this in detail, with references, here and here .
(Note: on 11/26/25, I added some things, and reordered. So, some of the videos are from after 11/11/25.)
(But you don’t have to believe me. There is a Nov. 10, 2025 FactCheck entitled “Trump Falsely Claims Democrats Want $1.5 Trillion for ‘Illegal Aliens’ ” which has the same exact conclusions, and links to fixed versions of the same White House “claim-supporting documents” that I also consulted. )
The summarized analysis (mine, agreeing with FactCheck), is that of $1.5 trillion = $1,500 billion (over 10 years) that the Democrats shut the government down over healthcare for, the only things possibly undocumented-immigrant-related is:
1)About $100 billion for healthcare for 1.2 million people from places like Venezuela and Haiti who would have been undocumented had Biden kept them that way, but he converted to “legally present”. Trump converted them back to “undocumented”. If the courts or a future administration converts them back to “legally present”, then we get $100 billion over 10 years, i.e. $10 billion a year. (All of this expenditure only if OBBB is undone.)
2)There is $30 billion for for undocumented people getting emergency emergency-room treatment, required by a Reagan-era ENTALA law. Some states, those that expanded Medicaid, get a 90% federal reimbursement for this. OBBB cuts this back to 50%. (Note that, if not the federal government, someone has to pay for the care. State government, other people who pay for coverage of themselves and their employees through passed on costs.)
That’s it. Nothing else. 7%-10%, only in an extremely forced sense: “legally-present” we have to think of them as really “undocumented”. The rest is pretty much all for U.S. citizens. (With things like permanent-resident green-card holders being some small bit.)
Now, the Republican lies (or ultra-strong deceptions) on the matter:
I have analyzed exactly how two of the people, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Vice President J.D. Vance phrased it. They are lawyers, and in a very technical legally-forced sense, they may not have lied. (I mean, if they said this in a court of law, under penalty of perjury, the perhaps could evade a conviction of perjury citing wild technicalities.)
1)Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson 11/2/25:
I have transcribed the text:
it is a fact, that no one can dispute, that they [the Democrats] shut the government down over restoring free healthcare to illegal aliens as part of their $1.5 trillion wild partisan wish list.
Now, in some kind of technical very-forced legal sense, Mike Johnson may claim that he could not be convicted of perjury if he made the statement in a law court because of that “as part of” there.
(Because 2% of the $1.5 trillion (over 10 years) is over the One BIg Beautiful Bill reduction of federal cost-sharing for undocumented immigrants when they receive emergency-room care, as required by Reagan-era the ENTALA law,
and about 7% is over funding for those “legally present” people who go back and forth between being “legally present” and “illegal aliens” (i.e. Biden-Trump-future court or president doing the switching back and forth). Right now, since Trump made them “illegal aliens”, they do not get federally-funded healthcare coverage, even prior to the One Big Beautiful Bill. and would not get it if the Democrats get what they’re asking for with the undoing of OBBB healthcare changes. They could only get the healthcare if the courts, or a future president, converted those people back to legally present.)
All the rest of the $1.5 trillion is for healthcare cuts for U.S. citizens and some other categories we have accepted to be here permanently, like permanent residents with green cards.
2)The vice president J.D. Vance, around the start of the shutdown, in a “press conference” where a “reporter” asks the first question about “two key Democrat lies”.
I have transcribed the text:
Look the text is very clear and I’ve I even saw, I think it was George Stephanopoulos in an interview with Mike Johnson did a fact check That was totally rooted in Baseless claims. It was basically Democrat propaganda. if you look at the legislative texts, that they gave us, they tried to turn on two separate provisions, that would give Health care benefits to illegal aliens
number 1. if you’re an American citizens, you’ve been to a hospital. in the last few years, you probably noticed that, wait times are, especially large and very often somebody who’s there in the emergency room waiting is an illegal alien very often a person who can’t even speak English. Why do those people? get health care benefits at hospitals paid for by at citizens. The answer is a decision made by the bid Administration that the Trump Administration working with Congressional Republicans. undid. We turned off that money. spigot to healthcare funding for illegal aliens. the Democrats in their legislative text want to turn it back on. That’s 1 Thing.
The second thing, Matt is, we all know that there are various ways in which the the, the, the Biden Administration waived the way illegal immigration status. They gave Parolees, they gave us Asylum claims to people who weren’t really claiming Asylum And when they waived the magic wand of amnesty giving millions of people legal status, even though they were in the country illegally, they also gave those people access to health care benefits. So what the Democrats are engaging in is a slide of hand, they’re saying, no, no, no, no. Those weren’t illegal aliens, who are getting health care benefits? even though? everybody? Excuse me Knows they were in the country illegally. it’s a lie told by the Democrats that they’re not trying to give health care benefits to illegal aliens. It’s a lie that is obviously untrue. If you just look at the text that they gave us and all you have to do is understand that this is about who benefits, We think the American people’s government ought to benefit, American citizens. The Democrats are willing to shut it down to benefit illegal, aliens. the contrast couldn’t be more clear.
The legalese is the same. The same two items, totaling at most 9% of the $1.5 trillion in question, are all that is answered.
(In both cases, obviously the average MAGA or swing voter won’t say “technically correct by legal manipulation”. They’ll say “you lied, you SOB.” And perhaps will add “Throw the bastards out!”.)
(I don’t know why Vance and Mike Johnson, both lawyers, bothered cooking up something that might not, by complicated legalistic reasoning, be considered, in a court of law, under oath, not perjury. Because that won’t matter to the voters, as I indicated. Could there actually be some legal consequences? I don’t think so. POTUS lies all the time. A commenter in a place where I posted the above indicated lying where Vance and Mike Johnson did is perfectly fine legally, under free speech principles.)
So why bother cooking up a lie? To what end? Could they be thinking that, after their lives on earth are over, these technicalities will have relevance? Can they be trying to fool God?
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P.S. I’ll throw in POTUS himself, who generally lacks careful wording, and is prone to outright lies.
The president, around the end of the shutdown, talking about the deal to end the shutdown:
With similar statements before Vance and Johnson, priming people to understand Vance and Johnson to be saying that the whole shutdown is over money for undocumented immigrants.
(Actually, I think the president may not have lied in the technical sense. Yes, the shutdown is over, and we’re not gonna be giving 1.5 trillion dollars to .... is true. It would also be true if the Republicans gave the Democrats everything they wanted before the shutdown.)
Also, the president again, on the extended version of the recent “60 Minutes” interview.
(If you listen for a few minutes, you will get to where he indicates it will be easy to fix healthcare, since he already solved 8 wars, and so healthcare would be easy.)
(Quite the elaborate little propaganda system they have going, those Republicans!)
I will add one case that Paul Krugman, in his Oct 31, 2025 post caught and commented this:
I guess it’s possible that Republicans will manage to limit the political damage by claiming — completely falsely — that the suffering about to hit millions is being caused by Democrats who want to lavish benefits on illegal immigrants and pay for sex change operations. That’s not hyperbole. Here’s the banner currently at the top of the Agriculture Department’s SNAP data page — its data page!
In the past it would have been unthinkable to display political propaganda, let alone grotesquely dishonest propaganda, on government data sites. But we’re in a new world.
from within
(The print is tiny in the graphic. I will transcribe:
Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times not to fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issue November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for the Senate Democrats. They can continue to holdout for healthcare for illegal immigrants and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance. )
(End Krugman quote and his bit from the SNAP data page from Oct 31, 2025)
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The Republicans would seem to have really messed up in their propaganda strategy as follows.
About 3/4 of the maybe 16 million people who will become uninsured (due to OBBB) will only find out about it after the midterms in a year, and the determination that the cause is the Republicans may not be clear to them.
But the Biden/Congress expanded tax credits, which were 3 years ago and expire end of 2025, and which includes the removal of a whopping initial ACA defect called the “subsidy cliff”, they have allowed to lapse. (Even though, say, Democrat and caver Angus King introduced a bill to extend them 10 months ago.)
And the effects of that will hurt a lot of people. And 24 million people are signing up right now, and will see the new rates. In some cases like:
Laramie County, Wyoming. Zip 82001. Married couple. Both 62 years old. Non smokers both.
Total income $88,000 a year. U.S. citizens both.
If Biden expanded subsidies were extended
An option: BlueSelect Gold Standard without Kid’s Dental ($4000 deductible, $16,400 out-of-pocket max)
Premium after subsidy 4748.64/yr =5% of income
Now, without the extension:
Lowest-cost plan: BlueSelect Bronze (deductible and out-of-pocket max both: $21,200/year
Premium : 45% of income = $39,904.80/yr
(Calculation detail only for those trying to regenerate. Since the expanded subsidies were not extended, you cannot get the extended numbers from healthcare.gov. You have to use: SCLSP : 4618.84 /mo = 55426.08/yr (BlueSelect Silver HealthPlus without Kid’s Dental; subsidy available: 55426.08-7480=47,946.08=3995.50/mo; Premium before subsidy: $4,391.22/mo = $52,694/yr;Premium after subsidy $4,391.22 - 3995.50 = 395.72/mo = 4748.64/yr )
So, with cases like these, and other still-noticeable premium increases, causality should become clearer to people.
And you would think, with this giant slip-up, it would be all over for Trump and the Republicans.
But, so far, it does not appear so!
So the big question is:
Will the echo-chamber people who watch only “Fox News” and such, and do not have the intellectual virtue or curiosity to venture outside to the many information sources available with the miracle of the internet, some of those information sources wonderful, ever be able to determine what is true?
That’s my big question. The rest will be little related add-ons.
Complements and Details:
We have former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently pointing out within this "Firing Line" the importance of:
an intelligent, interested, well-informed press
and
an intelligent, interested, well-informed public
and tossing in for good measure:
the rest of the world looks to us to see what democracy is, and they have to be impressed by what they see, not disappointed.
Justice Kennedy’s view of how democracy can work is an ideal or idealistic one. There is also:
throw the bastards out when things get really, really, messed up.
I toss in a bleak Walter Lippmann quote from “The Phantom Public” in the 1920s:
We must assume, then, that the members of a public will not possess an insider’s knowledge of events or share his point of view. They cannot, therefore, construe intent, or appraise the exact circumstances, enter intimately into the minds of the actors or into the details of the argument. They can watch only for coarse signs indicating where their sympathies ought to turn.
We must assume that the members of a public will not anticipate a problem much before its crisis has become obvious, nor stay with the problem long after its crisis is past. They will not know the antecedent events, will not have seen the issue as it developed, will not have thought out or willed a program, and will not be able to predict the consequences of acting on that program. We must assume as a theoretically fixed premise of popular government that normally men as members of a public will not be well informed, continuously interested, nonpartisan, creativeor executive. We must assume that a public is inexpert in its curiosity, intermittent, that it discerns only gross distinctions, is slow to be aroused and quickly diverted; that, since it acts by aligning itself, it personalizes whatever it considers, and is interested only when events have been melodramatized as a conflict.
The public will arrive in the middle of the third act and will leave before the last curtain, having stayed just long enough perhaps to decide who is the hero and who the villain of the piece. Yet usually that judgment will necessarily be made apart from the intrinsic merits, on the basis of a sample of behavior, an aspect of a situation, by very rough external evidence.
And I toss in, as well, an interview by Michelle Martin of philosopher Michael Sandel, where he indicates he believes we can get to the high-functioning, idealistic version of democracy that Anthony Kennedy wants, and that there is a hunger of people to reason together, argue together, debate together, about big questions that matter. And Ms. Martin asks, in a sad and wistful tone, why Mr. Sandel is so sure about this (here):
Now, so forgive me for asking the question in this way, but you you’ve spent much of your career your career at one of the country’s most elite institutions, and I’m just wondering how it is that you’re so convinced that people who don’t have the opportunity and the privilege to spend time at one of these elite institutions have this hunger, as you see it?
I will also toss in a repeat from my prior way of putting things:
There is a big mass of people who, forever reason, wind up being easy to manipulate and propagandize on. And they won’t even suspect they’re being manipulated and propagandized on.
Some people, often outside and above that mass (but not always), will recognize that that mass exists, and may choose from these:
i) Try, patiently, to improve the genuine knowledge of what is true within that mass
ii) Ignore the whole thing and focus elsewhere (hard scientists, mathematicians, etc.)
iii) Manipulate the mass in support of their own interests (and perhaps get some jollies in the process)
iv) Manipulate the mass to get them to make the country a bit better than it is, or keep it from going further down the drain.
The case (iv) would be the truly-good-person politician, who has picked up on this thing with the mass. So such politician will have to use manipulation for his noble end.