When Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa tried to defend her party’s far-right megabill — the inaptly named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — she confronted a constituent who said that people would die as a result of GOP health care cuts. It was at that point when the Iowa Republican said, “Well, we all are going to die,” a line she proceeded to lean into as her comments generated a national controversy.
What drew less attention, however, was what the Iowan said next. As part of the same exchange at her town hall meeting, Ernst went on to claim that she and her party “are going to focus on those that are most vulnerable. Those that meet the eligibility requirements for Medicaid, we will protect. We will protect them.”
The problem with that, however, was that her assurances weren’t altogether true. According to the Congressional Budget Office, many struggling Americans who currently meet the eligibility requirements for Medicaid would likely lose their health security as a direct result of the Republicans’ reconciliation package.
The Ernst fiasco, in other words, wasn’t just a controversy born of morbid candor; it was also a timely reminder that Republican officials struggling to defend Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill have found that the truth simply isn’t good enough. As The New York Times reported, the president and his allies are selling the bill with “falsehoods” and “inaccurate claims.”
As the Senate considers a domestic policy bill to enact the White House’s agenda, President Trump and his allies have sought to assuage some lawmakers’ concerns over its price tag and cuts to Medicaid with inaccurate claims. They have dismissed estimates of the effect of the “one big, beautiful bill” on the deficit as incorrect and described cuts to the health insurance program for poor Americans as simply trimming “waste, fraud and abuse.”
As this week got underway, for example, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared on Fox News and boasted that the inaptly named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would “save nearly $2 trillion.” That wasn’t even close to being true.
A day earlier, House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and insisted, “I am telling you, this is going to reduce the deficit.” According to arithmetic, the bill would add trillions of dollars to the deficit.
The Louisiana congressman, during the same interview, claimed “there are no Medicaid cuts” in the GOP legislation, which is demonstrably silly.
Around the same time, White House Budget Director Russ Vought told CNN that “no one will lose coverage as a result of this bill.” According to independent analyses from, among others, the nonpartisan CBO, millions of Americans would lose their health care coverage as a result of this bill.
A day later, the president boasted that one of the great things about his party’s legislative package is that it would “repeal” the Biden administration’s electric-vehicle mandate, which was bizarre given that no such mandate exists.
Soon after, Trump published an item to his social media platform that began, “So many false statements are being made about ‘THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.’”
It was the first thing he ever said about the legislation that I agreed with: There really are “so many false statements” being made about Republicans’ reconciliation package.
Of course, the question Americans should probably be asking themselves right about now is simple: If the GOP’s bill is so great, why can’t the party tell the truth about it?
