Republican Warns Against Cutting Medicaid for Sickest Reason

Some Republicans are apparently trying to defend services such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—they’re just doing it in the worst way possible.

Investigative journalist Tara Palmeri wrote in her newsletter The Red Letter Thursday that one Republican operative close to the White House had been framing the issue in a way conservatives would understand.

“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” the operative said, according to Palmeri.

Republicans’—apparently sometimes racist—scrambling to defend popular programming comes after Elon Musk declared that Social Security would be on the chopping block, in an interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow earlier this week. It seems that some of the more far-reaching cuts to Social Security pitched by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have since been scaled back.

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Chris LaCivita also hit back at Musk’s comments in an interview Friday with Politico’s Dasha Burns. “They’re not going to cut Social Security, they’re not going to cut Medicare, they’re just not. That’s just fearmongering,” he said.

“[Musk]’s not the president. He doesn’t get to make those decisions,” LaCivita added.

But some cuts are inevitable now.

Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers voted to pass a budgetary measure that would force the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees Medicaid, to reduce the deficit by at least $880 billion from 2025 to 2034. That resolution sparked widespread concerns that Republicans were simply seeking a way to slash the crucial program.

Those hoping to hear a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra Thursday night were treated to a different—but no less pleasurable—audio experience: hundreds of people booing Vice President JD Vance.

Vance’s arrival got a fiery reception at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which erupted into at least 30 seconds of jeers as Vance smiled and waved to the audience.

The vice president was accompanied by second lady Usha Vance, who was named to the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees last month, among a spate of new appointees that were part of Donald Trump’s takeover of the cultural institution.

Trump declared his intention to become the chairman of the Kennedy Center in February, before claiming that he had been “unanimously” picked to hold the position—though reportedly that wasn’t even true. He also claimed that the institution had booked drag shows “specifically targeting our youth.”

“We took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” Trump said at the time. “I’m going to be chairman of it, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be ‘woke.’”

Clearly, the actual attendees of the Kennedy Center have different feelings about Trump’s takeover—and let themselves be heard.

Luckily, the acoustics carried their dissent amazingly well.

Americans are unhappy with the president on just about every key issue, according to a poll published Thursday by Quinnipiac University.

Just 50 days into his second term, the majority of Americans—53 percent—disapprove of Donald Trump’s performance. That’s 11 points worse than Trump scored in a January 29 poll, when Quinnipiac found that 42 percent of the country disliked his performance.

Reacting to the survey, Fox News liberal host Jessica Tarlov noted that Trump is basically “underwater on everything.”

The country’s gripes with the MAGA leader include his decision to dismantle the Education Department, something that 60 percent of voters oppose, according to the Quinnipiac poll. Trump’s spontaneous trade war with Canada and Mexico has also not gone over well with the American public—58 percent of voters said they disapprove of Trump’s negotiations with Canada, while 56 percent of voters said they disapproved of Trump’s similar efforts in Mexico.

And Americans’ view of the economy—which Trump repeatedly turned to as his metric for success during his first term—has also sunk. More than three-quarters of the country believe that the economy is less than stellar, with 45 percent of polled voters describing it as “not so good,” while another 31 percent said that it was “poor.”

“In the Quinnipiac poll released today, 1 percent of voters describe the state of the America’s economy as excellent. That’s not a typo,” Democratic strategist Matt McDermott posted on X.

That’s a noticeable plummet from how voters felt in December, when a total of 64 percent of respondents told Quinnipiac that they believed the economy was either not so good or poor.

Immigration, which helped Trump win the White House, has also become a negative for Trump, with nearly half of voters (49 percent) disapproving of his job at the border.

Meanwhile, a minority of the country felt that Trump has successfully handled his foreign policy, with just 35 percent of respondents approving of the way that he treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House. That likely influenced Trump’s overall approval rating, which found that the Ukrainian leader is actually more popular among the American people than Trump himself (Trump’s approval rating came in at 42 percent while Zelenskiy’s was logged at 43 percent).

It’s not the only batch of unhappy polls for the president this week.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll out Thursday indicated that three in 10 Republicans believe the president has been “too erratic” in carrying out his economic agenda. Meanwhile, only Trump’s most ardent supporters opposed the language, with three in 10 Republicans telling the pollster that they “strongly disagreed” that Trump was too erratic.

And a CNN poll published Wednesday showed that one in five people who voted for Trump in 2024 disapproved of how the 78-year-old has implemented his tariff plan, as did 24 percent of Republican-leaning voters.

Another study by Center Forward, a nonpartisan nonprofit, found that some Trump voters felt the president was ignoring critical issues such as the economy.

Republican Representative Chuck Edwards decided to hold a town hall meeting in his district Thursday, and it went so badly that he had to call for security to escort him out.

Edwards was bombarded with angry questions from his constituents in Asheville, North Carolina, over President Trump’s disastrous policy decisions. One constituent asked the congressman some blunt questions that got support from the raucous crowd.

“Do you support Trump on annexing Canada or Greenland, and do you like the way he treats the premier or the president of Canada, calling him ‘governor’? Is that the way you’d do as a diplomat? Is that, is that the way the United States should act to our closest neighbors?” the constituent asked, drawing applause from the audience. He followed up with more direct questions.

“Do you enjoy the way he’s tried to extort minerals from the Ukraine? Do you like bullying people that need your help? Do you go for kicking the guy when he’s down? Do you support Trump in these things? This is a yes or no,” he pressed further.

Edwards managed to muster up a response, replying, “The short answer to that is no, I do not,” drawing his own small amount of applause. But then he lost the crowd when he backed Trump’s stance on extracting Ukrainian resources in exchange for military aid, and spoke on his decision to support the Republican-drafted continuing resolution to fund the government, drawing boos.

The congressman tried to deflect the Bronx cheers, remarking, “And you wonder why folks don’t want to do town halls anymore?”

One man stood up and cursed at Edwards.

“You have nothing to say but lies,” the man, who called himself a veteran, said loudly, to laughter and cheers from the audience. “You’re lying. I’m a veteran, you don’t give a fuck about me.” Security moved to remove him from the room while he yelled, “You don’t get to take away our rights!”

Edwards’s bad experience indicates why Republican leadership doesn’t want GOP representatives, particularly those in vulnerable districts, holding town halls. The public is angry at the actions of the Trump administration, as well as the Department of Government Efficiency initiative led by Elon Musk. Protesters at the Asheville town hall even chanted “Deport Musk” at one point. All of this may not bode well for Trump or Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick played dumb Friday about the increasingly real prospect of a recession in a desperate attempt to spin the crashing economy—but even Fox News isn’t letting him just slip by. 

During an interview on Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria, Donald Trump’s official tariff cheerleader tried to laugh off the recent prediction that inflation-adjusted GDP was on track to decline this quarter.

“I know you said you’re not expecting a recession, but investors are on edge over the possibility of a recession this year after the Atlanta Federal Reserve said that it’s predicting a 2.4 percent contraction in the first quarter,” host Maria Bartiromo said. “And of course President Trump would not—” 

“What? Wait, wait wait say that again—a what? A WHAT? 2.4 percent contraction?” Lutinick guffawed. 

“Correct,” Bartiromo replied.

“OK, right here, right now. Right here, right now. That is ridiculous,” Lutnick said, as if his word somehow held more water than the Federal Reserve. 

“Have you spoken to the president of the Atlanta Federal Reserve?” Bartiromo said.

“Absolutely not,” Lutnick said, laughing.

“Have you told the Atlanta Fed that you say it’s ridiculous? Because they’re out with this contraction prediction,” Bartiromo chided. “And I know that you and President Trump were handed a mess, I’m not arguing that, but now we’re talking about recession! And I asked President Trump about it this week and he didn’t say no!”

During an interview with Bartiromo that aired Sunday, Trump had refused to say that the U.S. was not headed for a recession—likely because he can’t. Similar considerations have not struck Lutnick yet. In an interview with CBS News earlier this week, Lutnick said that if there was a recession, it would be “worth it.” Now he seems to suggest it won’t happen at all. Uncertainty is good for the market, right? 

On Thursday, Lutnick had been  dumbstruck by Fox News’s simple questions about the strain Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on imported steel would have on U.S. manufacturing.