OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
9:19 AM – Friday, October 3, 2025
United States Representative Maxine Waters admitted that her party shut down the government to attain “health care for everybody,” which includes illegal immigrants.
Waters (D-Calif.) was asked outside of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday about the Senate Democrats’ rejection of the stopgap funding bill that the House had already passed.
“Do Democrats want to prioritize the healthcare of illegal aliens over a government shutdown?” Lidnell TV’s Alison Steinberg asked hours before the Senate’s first of two rejections of the bill.
“Excuse me, stop it right there,” Waters interjected, throwing up her hands. “We’re not prioritizing — what we’re doing is saying simply we want to keep the government open and we want to work with Republicans and have a bipartisan agreement to keep this government open. And healthcare is at the top of our agenda”
“Are Democrats demanding healthcare for illegal aliens?” the reporter asked
AdvertisementThe lawmaker said, “Democrats are demanding health care for everybody,”
“We want to save lives,” she added. “We want to make sure that health care is available to those who would die not having the help of their government.”
Steinberg responded, “So, you’re good with a government shutdown, even if it means giving health care to people who aren’t American citizens?”
“That’s what you’re pushing on. You’re standing here and you’re trying to make me say that somehow we’re going to put non-citizens over Americans,” Waters retorted. “Quit it! Stop it! This is the kind of journalism we don’t need. You’re divisive.”
Waters concluded saying, “we want to save healthcare for all people. Thank you.”
The Republican majority was able to pass the legislation in the House of Representatives, but the bill required support from both parties to secure the required 60 votes.
Only two Democrats voted in favor of the “clean” spending bill: Senator John Fetterman (D-Penn.) and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.). Independent Senator Angus King (I-Maine) also supported the measure. In the House, Representative Jared Golden (D-Maine) voted for the bill.
President Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social on Wednesday.
“Maxine Waters admitted that she is demanding Healthcare for Illegal Aliens, and it’s going to be Top of the Line, taking American Taxpayers’ Healthcare away from them!” the president wrote.
“The Chuck Schumer, [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] wing of the Democratic Party shut down the government because they said to us ‘We will open the government but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens,’” Vice President JD Vance also said at a Wednesday White House briefing.
In another, more assertive Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump warned, “THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO GIVE YOUR HEALTHCARE MONEY TO ILLEGAL ALIENS AND OPEN OUR BORDERS TO THE CRIMINALS OF THE WORLD, A DEADLY COMBINATION BECAUSE EVERYBODY WILL COME!”
On Thursday, Congress was not in session due to an observation of the Jewish holy day, Yom Kippur, a day of prayer and fasting to atone for sins. The holiday pushed the vote back to Friday, extending the lapse in government funding to at least three days.
While Republicans have labeled the event the “Schumer Shutdown,” the Democrats seem to have branded it the “Trump-Republican Government Shutdown,” if a statement from Waters’ office is to be believed.
“Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans have made the reckless and cruel decision to shut down the government because they don’t want to protect affordable healthcare for millions of hard-working American families,” the Wednesday statement reads, released by the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
“Trump and Republicans have shown zero concern for the real human cost of the Republican shutdown. We’ve seen this before: During the historically long Trump shutdown in 2018, families were forced to take payday loans, racked up debt, and suffered long-term economic consequences as a result of his folly. Trump and Republicans are taking us down that road again,” Waters stated.
The statement concluded, “Make no mistake: Republicans own this shutdown, as they control the House, Senate, and the White House. But it’s not too late for them to reverse course, restore the healthcare of working-class families, reopen the government, and rein in this reckless and failed President.”
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