The political theater of the shutdown spilled into morning television on Thursday, when Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sparred with CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil over the now-familiar Republican claim that Democrats want to give “free healthcare” to illegal immigrants. What began as a routine interview quickly escalated into a fiery exchange, with Warren cutting off the anchor mid-question to accuse Republicans of spreading outright falsehoods.
Dokoupil set the stage by noting that Republicans have hammered Democrats over healthcare provisions in the funding negotiations. “Republicans say what you’re really fighting for is taxpayer dollars for, as they put it, illegal aliens. I know that’s not strictly true, but—”
That’s when Warren jumped in. “Oh, excuse me, not strictly true? It is a flat-out lie! It is a flat-out lie!” she exclaimed, before repeating that neither Medicaid nor Medicare permits “one undocumented immigrant to get one dollar of assistance.”
WATCH: Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren explodes when ‘CBS Mornings’ co-host Tony Dokoupil points out Democrats do, in fact, want to provide health care to “noncitizens…on the taxpayer dime.”
Warren snapped back by declaring “it’s not strictly true” and “a flat-out lie”….… pic.twitter.com/fOSqgcSdUI
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 2, 2025
The CBS anchor tried to regain control, pointing out that the Democratic counterproposal does, in fact, restore Medicaid reimbursements for certain categories of noncitizens that were eliminated in Trump’s sweeping “Big Beautiful Bill.” Republicans, he noted, argue that including such provisions opens Democrats to the very attack lines they now denounce.
Warren wasn’t having it. She insisted the dispute wasn’t about expanding coverage to migrants at all, but about keeping hospitals solvent. “What we’re saying is that whenever hospitals give care, what is going to be the level of reimbursement? Republicans said it’s going to be a low level. The Democrats said we just want to go back to the level it was before, because you’re going to bankrupt hospitals. You’re going to put rural hospitals out of business.”
She stressed that under long-standing law, dating back to the Reagan era, hospitals must provide emergency care to anyone who shows up unconscious or bleeding. The only difference between the two proposals, she said, was whether hospitals would be reimbursed at a sustainable rate. “There is no change in the number of undocumented migrants who get any help,” Warren said.
The senator pivoted back to her broader message, arguing that the real stakes are about ordinary Americans: “help for people who are going to get pushed out of nursing homes, help for people at home relying on home health aides.”
