President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night was the longest in recent history, giving him ample opportunity to lay out his complete legislative agenda to the American public.
While Trump highlighted his push for "permanent income tax cuts"—which would disproportionately flow to the rich—he did not once mention that he has endorsed a House GOP plan to offset some of the costs of those tax cuts by taking a sledgehammer to Medicaid, which provides health coverage to more than 70 million low-income people in the United States.
In fact, the only mention of Medicaid during the address came not from Trump but from Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who yelled at the beginning of the speech that the president "has no mandate to cut Medicaid."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) subsequently ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove Green from the House chamber.
"Trump can try to run from his war on American healthcare, but he can't hide from it."
Medicaid cuts are extremely unpopular with U.S. voters, including Trump supporters, according to recent survey data. And Republicans know it: Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who voted for the budget resolution calling for huge cuts to Medicaid, warned Trump in a phone call last week that the GOP "could very easily lose the majority for it."
Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said that could help explain why Trump omitted any mention of House Republicans' proposal for $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years—cuts that could strip healthcare from tens of millions of people across the country.
Protect Our Care organized a "Hands Off Medicaid" display outside the White House ahead of the president's address.
"Donald Trump can try to run from his war on American healthcare, but he can't hide from it," Woodhouse said in a statement late Tuesday. "He knows his plan to cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid is so deeply unpopular that he would rather sweep it under the rug and not mention it at all."
"While people are struggling to pay their bills, he wants to raise the cost of healthcare and take away coverage that millions of people count on," Woodhouse added. "Trump is breaking the promises he made to the American people just to provide his billionaire friends with tax cuts."
As Trump celebrated the destructive actions he's taken during the opening weeks of his second White House term and rattled off examples of purportedly wasteful spending he claimed was identified by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) quipped that "this list is so long and taking up so much real estate in his speech it's almost like they want to distract from their massive cuts to Medicaid."
"Trump backed the GOP into a big corner with his 'balanced budget' point," Ocasio-Cortez added, referring to the president's expressed desire to "do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget."
"The ONLY way the House GOP could even think about upholding their 'no cuts to Medicaid' swing seat promises and their spending cut mandates is deficit spending and bad math," the New York Democrat wrote. "Now they have to gut Medicaid and hand it to Elon in public."
Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, observed that the recently passed House GOP budget resolution's tax cuts "are so large that even with massive cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and student loans that budget would INCREASE the deficit."
During his address, Trump claimed that "the next phase" of his economic plan is "for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody."
But an analysis published last week by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the Medicaid cuts outlined in House Republicans' budget resolution would "squander most of the meager benefits from the [Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] extension even for families in the middle fifth of the income distribution."
"Medicaid cuts will substantially reduce incomes for families in the bottom 40% (the bottom two-fifths) of the income distribution," EPI found. "For the bottom fifth, $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade would translate into Medicaid benefit reductions equal to 7.4% of their money income. For the second fifth, these cuts would equal 1.7% of their money income."
In his response to the president's speech Tuesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that "in so many words, Trump urged Congress to pass his 'big, beautiful budget.'"
"Do you know what's really in it? This budget would cut Medicaid by $880 billion. Oh, I guess Trump forgot to talk about that," said Sanders. "According to one estimate, it means that up to 36 million Americans, including millions of children, would be thrown off the health insurance they have."
"A 90-minute speech tonight," the senator added, "not one word about throwing millions of kids off of the health insurance they have."
