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Transcript

00:04Good morning. It is Sunday, April the 5th. We begin with breaking news this morning.

00:08U.S. officials say that American military forces have rescued the missing crew member

00:12of an American fighter jet that was shot down over Iran on Friday,

00:16and all personnel involved in the rescue have returned safely.

00:20We got him, President Trump announced in a lengthy post on Truth Social,

00:25stating that the airman was now safe and sound, adding that the mission involved,

00:29quote, dozens of aircraft. And while the officer, an Air Force colonel, had sustained injuries,

00:34he, quote, will be just fine, end quote. This news caps a tense 24 hours. The other crew member,

00:40a pilot, was quickly found and recovered alive after the jet went down. It was an F-15E jet.

00:45It went down early Friday. The operation was very high risk. The Washington Post reports that a U.S.

00:51C-130 aircraft and rescue helicopters had to fly low and slow over Iran's mountainous terrain to

00:58locate the missing airman. Two of the rescue helicopters reportedly took ground fire from

01:03Iranian forces during the rescue mission. According to the New York Times, the missing airman

01:07had been hiding behind enemy lines armed with little more than a pistol for defense.

01:12And after ejecting from the F-15, he hid in a mountain crevice, adding that the airman,

01:18quote, evaded Iranian forces for more than 24 hours at one point, hiking up a 7,000 foot ridge line,

01:25a senior military official told the Times. U.S. attack aircraft dropped bombs and opened fire

01:31on Iranian convoys to keep them away from the area where the airman was hiding. Meanwhile,

01:36Iranian military officials have warned the, quote, gates of hell will open for the U.S. and Israel

01:41if strikes on Iranian infrastructure continue. Now, in response, Donald Trump has threatened to

01:47unleash, quote, all hell. If Tehran does not make a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday,

01:54that was an unusual social media post, even by Trump's standards, but he outdid himself this

01:59morning. And on this holy weekend, I'm sorry to have to use profanity on this show, but this is

02:04what your 47th president of the United States just posted, quote, Tuesday will be power plant day

02:10and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking

02:16straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah, end quote.

02:24That's what the president of the United States has just posted. Joining us now from Dubai is MSNOW

02:29contributor Inzamam Rashid. Inzamam, this was quite a situation. You and I were just talking about it

02:35yesterday morning, the idea that there is, in theory, an alive American military person behind

02:42enemy lines, and this person has been rescued now. Yeah, I think not only America, the American people

02:52and the family of this servicemen, but also the Gulf states and the wider region will be breathing

02:58a huge sigh of relief today, Ali, now that this U.S. Air Force military pilot and this weapons,

03:10essentially the weapons organizer of this aircraft, has been rescued and has been evacuated

03:17from Iranian territory. A huge sigh of relief, because as you mentioned there, if he was captured

03:24by Iran inside Iranian territory, it would have been a worst-case scenario for this conflict,

03:29because Iran would have essentially used him as some sort of leverage for negotiations. The

03:34propaganda would have been incredible. It would have been immense if they did that. But thankfully,

03:40they haven't. And as a result, this serviceman is now back to some sort of safety. But it has been

03:47a very tense 48 hours. This operation was incredibly high risk. It meant that, as you mentioned,

03:54some of the aircraft had to fly low to this very mountainous terrain inside Iran. There was clear

04:00fighting on the ground as well as a result. But look, the Iranians have come out today and refuted some

04:07of the reporting that's ongoing, suggesting that it was the U.S. that had to bomb some of its own

04:14aircraft,

04:16including some of the C-130 jets and also two Black Hawks. Iran have come out and said that the

04:24IRGC

04:25are saying that two American C-130 transport aircrafts and two Black Hawk helicopters were shot

04:32down by their military. And then they've released some images, and these are unverified images as of yet,

04:40showing a crash site around 28 miles south of the Iranian city of Isfahan. And the images actually show

04:48components from at least one large propeller-driven plane and helicopter. Again, no confirmation as to

04:57whether this has been as a result of Iranian fire on these jets and helicopters that have downed them during

05:05this operation, which took place over the last 48 hours. Iran have also come out and said this is from

05:11the representative of the Iranian supreme leader. He said that the U.S. president sought to restore

05:17America's lost prestige after the destruction of his fighter jet. But in doing so, he has also lost

05:23several aircraft, helicopters and forces. I think what's really clear and what has been over the last 48

05:30hours ever since this F-15 was shot down by Iran on Friday is that Iran does have military

05:37capabilities, Ali, despite whatever the president and his team have said. They've shown their force by

05:43taking down a number of planes, by targeting helicopters as well. And that will be a real

05:49concern for not just America, Israel, but also the Gulf states where I am, Ali. Right, because there has

05:56been, there have been unequivocal statements by the American military and the president and the

06:00secretary of defense that Iran does not have these capabilities. They may not have many of them, but

06:05they've got some of them, as we've obviously seen in the last 48 hours. It's a, there's a lot of

06:08confusion and a lot of misinformation flying around Inzamam. So we really rely on you and your colleagues

06:13for your excellent reporting. MSNOW contributor Inzamam Rashid for us in Dubai. We'll continue to stay on

06:18this story. I want to head back to Washington. If you've started to notice some scrambling at the

06:23White House, let's say an executive order aimed at limiting mail-in voting or a primetime address

06:29to the nation from the Oval Office or a number of reports from inside the administration that

06:33they're racking their brains to end the war in Iran or a couple of cabinet firings, it may be because

06:40every day is another step closer to the midterms. The midterm elections, which we talk about in fairly

06:45general terms, are a specific date. They're on November the 3rd, 212 days away. And Donald Trump's

06:52disapproval rating dipped to 35% in a new CNN poll. That's as low as it's ever been in that

06:57poll.

06:57And generally speaking, it's about as low as it gets for Donald Trump because he has a built-in base

07:02of about a third of the country that will simply not see him through a critical lens, regardless of

07:07what he does. Which means mathematically fully 64% of Americans disapprove of Trump. In a Quinnipiac poll

07:15released last week, 51% of registered voters said they would want to see Democrats take control of

07:20the House in November. That's an 11-point lead over Republicans. Donald Trump's political instincts

07:26are to address his plummeting popularity by trying to discredit the elections by sowing doubts about

07:31the integrity of the election. Why not? Almost worked for him in the past. So this Tuesday,

07:38this past Tuesday, he signed an executive order seeking to limit mail-in voting. It directed the

07:43Homeland Security Department to create an approved list of absentee voters and forbade states from

07:49sending mail-in ballots to any voter who's not on this pre-approved list. So in essence,

07:55it would provide the federal government the way of preventing eligible voters from accessing

07:58absentee ballots. Twenty-three Democratic-run states have already sued the government over

08:04the executive order. And as things stand, Democrats have momentum heading into November. But again,

08:09it's 212 days away. And in the next few weeks, however, Democrats have got some opportunities

08:14to capitalize on the momentum that is theirs at the moment. This Tuesday, for instance,

08:19a Democrat has a chance. I want to be really clear about this. It's a small chance to flip a

08:26Republican-held seat again. Since Donald Trump's election in November 2024, take a look at this

08:32picture. This is interesting. Democrats have flipped 30 seats that were previously held by Republicans,

08:37including in New Jersey and Virginia's legislative elections, which were in November,

08:41and in other state-level special elections across the country. These are state legislature-level

08:48elections. In that same period, Republicans have not flipped a single Democratic-held seat.

08:55Now, the one I was telling you about on Tuesday, some context here. This is Georgia's 14th

09:00congressional district. It was represented until January by Marjorie Taylor Greene. And there is a

09:06runoff election for the remainder of Marjorie Taylor Greene's term. The runoff election is on Tuesday.

09:11There was an election a few weeks ago, but in some of the southern states, for various reasons,

09:16racism being among them, you have to get 50 percent in order to win, and nobody got 50 percent.

09:21However, there's a long shot chance here for the Democrat Sean Harris. He's a retired brigadier

09:27general who challenged Greene and lost in 2024. His opponent is a guy named Clay Fuller, also a military

09:34veteran and endorsed by President Trump. They rallied together, Trump and Fuller, in February. But

09:40Harris has the cash advantage. He's running a strong ground game. And last month's primary

09:45gave him encouraging signs. He was, and I will say this, he was expected to be, because it was a

09:51big

09:51primary. He was the top vote-getter of the night, with several Republicans splitting the rest of the

09:56vote amongst themselves. But the way it goes in some of these southern states is all those other people

10:00who didn't win, their voters will probably all get together and that'll be the result. But it was a

10:04mixed-party primary, with the top vote-getters advancing to the runoff. And the top two vote-getters,

10:10as you can see, were Fuller and the Democrat. While Trump endorsed the Republican candidate,

10:16Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is still relatively popular in her home district, has not endorsed

10:21anyone in this race. Turnout in the first few days of early voting was hitting a steady pace. We'll be

10:27monitoring the race very closely on Tuesday. Again, I remind you, this one is a long shot. But,

10:34but, and I got Michael Schur looking at me here, he's looking at me like, don't say it.

10:39Democrats have won a few long shots recently. They've actually won races that they were not

10:43expected to win. So the fact that we're even here discussing this is interesting. I also want to talk

10:50about another story. There's early voting open in Virginia, not for a primary, but for a referendum,

10:55which was triggered by Donald Trump, but may in fact benefit Democrats. On April the 21st,

11:00voters will decide whether Virginia engages in mid-decade redistricting, which would likely

11:05net the Democrats four seats in the U.S. Congress this November. Virginia Democrats created the new

11:11map as a countermeasure to Trump's push last summer for Republican states to redraw their maps to help

11:17the party maintain its narrow majority, very narrow majority, in the U.S. House. Currently,

11:22six Democrats and five Republicans represent Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives.

11:27Under the proposed new boundaries, based on how the states voted in the 2025 governor election

11:33last November, the split could be 10 Democrats to one Republican. If Virginia voters approve that

11:42referendum, Democrats could gain four seats in the U.S. House. New congressional district maps

11:48passed in California and Utah also favor Democrats, while redistricting in Texas, Missouri, North

11:53Carolina, and Ohio has favored Republicans. Taken together, all of these actions would essentially

12:00even out. A new poll is a bit of a warning to Virginia Democrats, however. 52 percent of likely voters

12:05said they would vote to redistrict. 47 percent say they are against the referendum, and that is within

12:12the margin of error of 3.4 percent. Okay, so we've got a lot of things to discuss here. Joining

12:17me

12:17now, as I said, is Michael Schur, who's giving me a side eye. He's a longtime political journalist and

12:21an old friend. And Jeff Shapiro is a scholar at the University of Virginia Center for Politics and an

12:26analyst for Radio IQ, Virginia's public radio outlet. He's covered Virginia government and elections

12:31in that state for like as long as Virginia's been a state. Okay, 40 years. He's been doing it for

12:37a long

12:37time. Nice to see you both. Thank you for being with us. Let me get this out of the way,

12:41because Michael Schur has talked to me. Mike, I get it. I get it. Georgia 14, this is a very

12:47Republican place. In fact, two elections ago, there wasn't even a Democratic candidate. Then this

12:52is the guy who ran against Marjorie Taylor Greene. He improved on his performance by very little in

12:57this last election. He was the top vote-getter, but that's just because of the way it works.

13:01Right. It was a circus there, right, Raleigh? I mean, they had over a dozen Republican candidates,

13:06a few Democrats. He was clearly the guy. He also had the name recognition in that district.

13:11But he also lost by a ton. It's the Trumpiest district in Georgia, right? So Donald Trump in

13:182024 won it by 38%. So they call it a Trump plus 38. The odds are completely stacked against a

13:25Republican. A Democrat I spoke to at the DNC in Washington this week when I knew that I was going

13:29to be doing this. He said to me that Democrats are not looking to Sean Harris necessarily to be

13:35the next representative. There's a basis of realism that you shared. But Wednesday morning could tell

13:42a lot to Democrats about the behavior of Republicans here around the war, right, which is, you know,

13:49they're having the America first dialogue in the 14th district saying, a lot of Republicans saying

13:54that this war is not America first, that this is terrible for America. And there are two military

13:58veterans. And there are two military veterans. One's an Air Force Clayfolder, an Air Force veteran,

14:04as you said, a brigadier general for over 40 years in the Army. This is a military, but it's also

14:09a really agricultural district. It's Northwest Georgia, butts Tennessee. And the Democrat's also

14:14a farmer. And the Democrat is also a farmer. So it's more interesting than not. This is not

14:19one of those some progressive is running against a Republican in a Republican district. No question.

14:24As Jack Drummond said, it doesn't matter until it matters. And it could matter on Wednesday if you

14:30see that Republicans are not rallying in unity around him. And Moore himself has said that that

14:37he, you know, sorry, Harris himself has said that he will need 20 percent of Republicans to vote for him

14:43and independents. That's a long hill to climb. Jeff, let's talk about Virginia. First of all,

14:50I sort of get it because a lot of people don't want to go out actively and encourage what they

14:57think of as a broken system, right? Meddling in in redistricting. But the only reason this

15:02referendum is happening is because Donald Trump got involved in meddling in the system. What do you

15:06make of these numbers that show that it's kind of an even split between Virginians who want to

15:11redistrict and Virginians who don't? The polling clearly shows this has been consistent on this issue

15:18that the folks who oppose this garrimander and Elbridge Gerry would be pleased with what Democrats

15:25are proposing in Virginia. They've got passion going for them, though they continue to trail in

15:33these these matchups. The most powerful argument that the Democrats have going for them. And by the way,

15:40there are Democrats who are not cool on this idea at all. But nonetheless, it's hostility,

15:46continuing pronounced full boil hostility in Virginia for Donald Trump that's propelling this.

15:54He's been on a ballot three times as a Republican presidential nominee, three times rejected. And

16:00the enmity that has accumulated in Virginia, and I think Mr. Schur may have some feel for this as a

16:05UVA

16:06alum, that it is it is hastened continuing Republican, excuse me, continuing Democratic gains

16:14in Virginia in the out years. I appreciate this is how, you know, Jeff Shapiro knows a lot. He called

16:21it garrimandering because Elbridge Gerry is actually that's his name. I don't know how when Gary became

16:26Jerry, but it's garrimandering. It's UVA. That's what it is. OK, so so let's talk about this, because

16:32on one hand, I've talked about all this this momentum, starting with the no Kings rallies and then the

16:38November elections and the special elections and then the new no Kings rally. This is problematic

16:45because this is a big state, important matter. Right. Democrats are not as energized by this as

16:54they have been by other topics for some reason. Well, it mirrors a little bit of what the early

16:58conversation was in California around Prop 50 when when Newsom changed the districting in California,

17:04went to the people, which is a very similar concept, which is exactly a similar concept.

17:08Indiana for the Republicans refused to do it. Now what's Trump doing? He's he's primarying all

17:14the legislators that voted against it who are Republicans in Indiana. So there's a bit of,

17:18you know, vindictiveness that we've seen all across the way. However, what makes this different?

17:24And I'm glad you framed it the way you did with with talking about the no Kings rallies,

17:29talking about pushing back. Democrats have been criticized nationally for not by their

17:34own party for not pushing back hard enough. Right. So when you do it, it has a cumulative

17:39effect is what is what many sort of rank and file Democrats say we need to fight harder. So you're

17:44going to lose some of these fights. I don't think they're going to lose in Virginia from what I can

17:48tell it is within the margin of error. There were Democrats in California that were opposed to Prop 50.

17:53There are Democrats in Virginia who were opposed to this. But the whole notion that Democrats are

17:58fighting back. That's what Democrats on a, you know, sort of on a grassroots level want to see their

18:04party do, which it hasn't done very often. And now at least they're doing it. So if there's some cold

18:08feet about it, that's natural. But at least they're following through with it is what Democrats

18:12I'm going to ask you both to hang around for a second. I'm going to take a quick break. We'll

18:14continue the conversation with Jeff Shapiro and Michael Shore right after this. You're watching Velshi.

18:21I'm back with Michael Shore and Jeff Shapiro. Jeff, I want to continue this conversation

18:24about what's different in Virginia about this redistricting vote than happened in California,

18:29where it sort of got post-political in California, right? It was about the fact that Donald Trump's

18:35doing crazy stuff. And so Californians have an opportunity on behalf of the country to fight

18:39back and do something that perhaps they wouldn't naturally do in terms of redistricting, maybe felt

18:45a little bit dirty to some people, but needed to be done because of the fight. Why is this manifesting

18:49a little bit differently in Virginia? Hyperpartisan political cartography has been a problem in Virginia

18:57for about 30 years. This is a voting rights state, so there are always racial considerations.

19:04But as the legislature flipped, Republicans used many of the same tricks that the Democrats had

19:12been using. And this just became more granular, more surgical, more finely tuned. Voters had their

19:20fill of this since barely six years ago, revised the state's constitution to remove

19:30the legislature's redistricting power and turn it over to a bipartisan commission. It deadlocked in its

19:38first go around. The Supreme Court of Virginia prepared districts that generally largely reflected the

19:46close division in this state. Democrats want to, you know, upend this, supposedly in the interest of

19:55countering Trump's heavy handedness. But there are lots of technical complications here. For example,

20:02Virginians are voting in a referendum in the middle of April. This is new. This is different. We're in the

20:10middle of, by the way, 45 days of early voting. Republicans have been in and out of court trying

20:18to delay this, if not stop it altogether. The Supreme Court of Virginia green-lighted the referendum but

20:26made clear in its order that it will decide the merits of this issue after the referendum. So it's

20:35entirely possible. So in fact, the result on April 21st, as I'm standing in front of that board telling

20:40all our viewers about it, may not be the result? You could be before that big board and the numbers

20:49could be encouraging for those who support this. But then when the matter is before the court on the

20:55merits, the big news, conceivably, possibly, I'm trying to use the conditional verb tense here, could be

21:02that this is illegal and unconstitutional. So this is a rich process and procedure-oriented story,

21:12but one in which these little twists and turns could have a very significant impact.

21:18Okay. So putting the technical part of this aside, which will be very important,

21:23as Jeff has just pointed out, it could be decisive. That said, the results will matter psychologically to

21:29people. Of course they will. And I think there's a lot of psychology here. You know, with all that Jeff

21:34said, the other fact is that California reacted immediately after Trump did it in Texas. So there

21:39was more energy behind saying, if they're going to do this, we're going to do it. Now there's been a

21:44little more of a lag in time in Virginia, which I think has made it a little more analytical and

21:48a

21:49little more difficult for Virginia Democrats to go about it. They also had a Republican governor for a

21:54while and then Spanberger came in. So there's sort of a change of power that gave momentum to this

22:01thing. But yeah, I think when you look at this and you see what Democrats are doing there and you

22:06look

22:06at these results, look, the California results were challenged in the courts. There was no merit to it.

22:11These will be challenged. You won't know, but Democrats will at least have the feeling

22:15that they've convinced Virginia voters that this is the way to go and this is the way to respond

22:19to the rule breaking that's happening on the other side. Jeff, let me ask you something,

22:23because there's been a lot of criticism about how Abigail Spanberger was the new kind of Democrat

22:28that's going to win in this country, fairly moderate. I think this is all kind of nonsense,

22:32because people who don't like Trump want people who are going to fight this move. Is this associated

22:38in Virginia with being some sort of a far left radical move or not? The complication for Abigail

22:47Spanberger is that she comports herself as, you know, a center left can do solutions oriented Democrat.

22:57I mean, I think her instincts are largely as a social liberal, but elections, statewide elections,

23:04are consistently decided in the middle in Virginia. Spanberger appreciates that and her record

23:12as a congressional candidate and as a statewide candidate affirm that. There's another rub here,

23:19and that is the garrimander in its various forms over the arc of her career really shaped her career.

23:29When she ran for the first time in 2018 in a district, the boundaries of which had been contested,

23:37she had to be very mindful of the rural outlying areas of that district. It was anchored in a blue

23:46suburb, but nonetheless, you know, she needed to kind of demonstrate to red voters that she'd walk the

23:53walk and talk the talk. Then the district was reoriented from the Richmond suburbs to the Northern

24:00Virginia suburbs, and she had to do it all over again with an entirely fresh election.

24:06The different audience, yeah, yeah.

24:07So she's always been sort of lukewarm on all of this and having supported enthusiastically the move to

24:17this bipartisan redistricting commission. That said, she knows that she has to make and keep friends in the

24:26democratic control of the legislature. So she's endorsed this, she's cut a television spot,

24:33and she's even voted early and made a point of encouraging Virginians to do the same.

24:40All right. You guys are super smart. I'm enjoying this conversation. And I think,

24:44Michael, you and I should sign on to Jeff's move to rename it or return the name to gerrymandering.

24:50Yeah, no question.

24:51Because that's what it is. Guys, thanks very much to both of you. Michael Schur is a long time

24:56political journalist. Jeff Shapiro is a scholar at the University of Virginia Center for Politics

25:00and has been covering Virginia politics for a long time. Of course, we will be covering Virginia

25:03politics very closely for the next few weeks. All right. Yesterday,

25:07we did a segment on mail-in voting and on a map that I showed you, the colors were accidentally

25:12mixed up and a few of you pointed out to me. So I want to show you the correct map

25:16now and the

25:17information showing mail-in voting laws across the country. I apologize that we got that wrong.

25:23Today, eight states plus the District of Columbia allow for what's known as universal mail-in voting.

25:29Those are the states colored in green. In these states, all registered voters automatically

25:34receive an official ballot in the mail, no questions asked. In the blue states, there are 28 of them,

25:39nothing to do with Democratic. They're just 28 blue colored states. Voters can request an absentee ballot

25:45without having to provide an excuse. In the remaining 14 states that are all in yellow, voters do need to

25:53provide an excuse in order to get a mail-in ballot. Again, thank you to those of you who pointed

25:57out the

25:58inconsistencies in the map. This is now the correct map. All right, coming up. Last year,

26:02the Trump administration set states on a wild goose chase to find undocumented immigrants who

26:07were enrolled in Medicaid. A new report uncovered little evidence of a widespread problem.

26:24Last October, Mehmet Oz, the TV doctor turned administrator of the Centers for Medicare and

26:29Medicaid Services, posted on social media that more than $1 billion of federal taxpayer dollars

26:36were being spent on funding Medicaid for illegal immigrants in five states in Washington, D.C.

26:42The Trump administration then ordered state officials to investigate long lists of Medicaid

26:47enrollees to determine if they were undocumented and therefore ineligible for Medicaid. Medicaid,

26:54as you know, covers health costs for people with low incomes and people with disabilities.

26:58Those without legal status in this country are not eligible for Medicaid. Full stop.

27:03The federal government sent states the names of hundreds of thousands of Medicaid enrollees

27:09and ordered the states to determine whether they were ineligible based on their immigration status.

27:14It was a large undertaking. These were not short lists. We're talking of thousands and sometimes

27:19tens of thousands of names. A spokesperson for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that

27:24the verification checks were necessary for, quote, certain enrollees whose status could not be

27:30confirmed through federal data sources, end quote, which is sort of fascinating to me given that Elon

27:35Musk and his doge people were all over federal data. I assume the feds know everything they need to know

27:40about us, but apparently not. The health news website KFF recently reviewed the findings from five states

27:45and seems like the government is on a wild goose chase. As of March, both Pennsylvania and Colorado

27:51have checked the eligibility of a combined total of 79,000 Medicaid enrollees of the 79,000 Medicaid

28:00enrollees. Officials determined that the number of people illegally benefiting from Medicaid was

28:08zero. The findings from the other states don't provide much evidence that undocumented immigrants

28:13are committing large scale fraud either. Of the 65,000 people that Ohio has checked so far,

28:18260 people were deemed to be ineligible and kicked off of Medicaid. In Texas, it was 77,000

28:24out of 28,000. In Utah, it was 42 out of 8,000. To put this into perspective, 68 and

28:32a half million

28:33people were enrolled in Medicaid at the end of 2025, according to the latest government data.

28:38From what KFF has found so far, fewer than 400 people in five states have been deemed ineligible.

28:44The reviews are ongoing. The government is continuing to send states more names to verify,

28:48but the findings reviewed by KFF so far do not reveal an alarming theft of government services

28:54that the Trump administration has been quick to suggest. For more on this, I'm joined by Phil

28:59Galowitz. He's a senior correspondent for KFF Health News, which we love because you just,

29:03you don't bother. You guys just get into the detail, right? You're not driven by the politics of the

29:07whole thing. Phil, is this like the immigrants, undocumented people voting? Is this just another

29:13thing that the government is just trying to get people to think actually happens and should be a

29:17big concern of ours? Well, they've certainly drawn a lot of attention over the last year

29:23to the issue of, are illegal immigrants benefiting from a government program? And they have made a lot

29:29of noise over it, made a lot of comments, and have had the states do a lot of work to

29:34double-check and

29:35make sure that people who are on the program met all the rules. And they made a lot of announcements

29:41about this last summer, had a lot of states go check the information. And really, we haven't heard much

29:47since, so that's why we decided at KFF Health News to go and check and check in with states who

29:52were willing

29:52to share with us the information. And their findings were just what you said. They found sort of no

29:58evidence of any widespread problem, and very few people had to be terminated from the program.

30:03Are you, do you have any, were you able to get any granularity into the 400 or so people that

30:09you

30:09were able to make determinations about? Is it, is it all very simple that they were undocumented

30:13people who somehow got enrolled in Medicaid? Or are there, are there differences amongst why there

30:18are people who were not eligible who were enrolled? The couple of states that shared with us the

30:25information said they largely had the information already on them. So there was a relatively simple,

30:30because they already had the data. Ohio, for example, did have some people, they had to go

30:35and reach back out to people for more information to confirm they were on it. But that was only very

30:41few people. It's unclear why the government didn't have this information. There is a program that Medicaid,

30:47for illegal immigrants, where Medicaid does pay hospitals in cases of emergency care,

30:54cases of people who come in pregnancy where they do pay. And that's in just for emergency care.

31:00That's not full scope Medicaid, which we're largely talking about here.

31:04Right. So if you took advantage of that, if you're an undocumented American who takes advantage of

31:10emergency, you get into a car crash or something, or you have a heart attack and you go to emergency,

31:13or, or you've got a pregnancy matter, that would not be breaking the law.

31:20Correct. That's what the program is there for. The program is largely there for to help protect

31:25hospitals because they make sure when people do come in, in emergency, hospitals are required to

31:31treat people regardless of status, regardless of insurance. That's the law. They must treat them.

31:36So that emergency program is largely there to help protect hospitals and make sure that they can get

31:41some funding in those cases for people who, people who would otherwise qualify for Medicaid,

31:46if not for their legal status. And, but so, no, that's not taking advantage. But to be sure,

31:52that's not full Medicaid coverage. That's not coverage that people can take and use to go to

31:57the doctor, use to go and get dental care just for emergencies. Yeah. And so, and by the way,

32:03these are statistically almost irrelevant numbers. And number two, this is stuff paid for by the states,

32:08not the federal government anyway. Phil, thank you. There's a lot of stuff in here,

32:12and I hope people read it. Phil Galowitz is a senior correspondent at KFF Health News. All right,

32:18coming up, we know by now the military consequences of this war with Iran, but our reputation

32:22as a soft power in the world is on the line too. My next guest said that America should be

32:27worried

32:27about the power of influence, not the influence of power.

Velshi 4/5/26 | MSNBC Breaking News Today April 5, 2026

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