Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres told CNN’s Scott Jennings to his face that caregivers on Medicaid “are working much harder than you are.”
The two men were exchanging barbs over President Donald Trump’s freshly passed ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, which institutes new work requirements for Medicaid recipients, among other cuts.
“If the bill surgically targets fraud, waste, and abuse, then why would it be necessary to set up a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals?” Torres said, appearing on CNN’s NewsNight Wednesday. “Something does not add up here.”
Jennings, a conservative CNN commentator who often defends Trump on the network, fired back: “According to the [Congressional Budget Office], which you deny the existence of, apparently, almost five million people, who choose not to work, would be—”
“That is false,” the New York lawmaker interjected. “That is like a figment of your imagination.”
“It’s literally right here,” Jennings said in a shrill voice, holding up his phone.
The men began to talk over each other, with Torres claiming that the “percentage of people who choose not to work is less than 1 percent,” while Jennings responded, “I’m not giving you a percentage.”
“Republicans want to encourage people to work,” Jennings told Torres at one point. “You want to encourage people to be government-dependent.”
As host Abby Phillip tried to intervene in the bickering to end the segment, Torres got off one last jab.
“The caregivers are working much harder than you are,” he told Jennings, just before the show went to commercials.
Jennings was signed as an on-air contributor for CNN in 2017. He has previously worked on Republican political campaigns, including George W. Bush’s presidential runs. In 2012, he founded the public relations firm RunSwitch.
Jennings’ claim that nearly 5 million people losing Medicaid coverage “choose not to work,” which he has made multiple times on the network in recent days, has been rated as false by PolitiFact.
The CBO’s analysis says that there are 4.8 million able-bodied Americans between 19 and 64 with no dependents who don’t work and are set to lose Medicaid coverage.
However, it doesn’t say that these people “choose not to work,” and an analysis by KFF in May found that many people in this group cite other reasons for their unemployment, like caregiving and attending school.
The CBO also estimates that 10 million people could lose Medicaid coverage over the next decade because of the bill.
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