One Republican member of Congress defending the House Republican budget's cuts to Medicaid was caught off-guard when asked to take a position on whether to side with President Donald Trump or South African centibillionaire Elon Musk.
During a Tuesday interview with CNN host Kasie Hunt, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who is a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, explained his rationale behind why he supported severe cuts to Medicaid (which provides health insurance to low-income families). The current House of Representatives budget package would slash Medicaid funds by $880 billion over a 10-year period. Roy insisted those cuts would not impact families receiving Medicaid, and would only be focused on "waste, fraud and abuse." But when Hunt confronted him on that point, Roy notably deflected several times.
"You have enormous amount of fraud under Medicaid. You have illegal aliens getting Medicaid, you have California gaming Medicaid in order to get money," Roy said without offering supporting evidence. As the Kaiser Family Foundation pointed out, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to enroll in Medicaid. Rather, payment for emergency services rendered (as required under law) to those without insurance comes from Medicaid funds.
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Hunt pressed Roy on whether he "really think[s] there's $700 billion worth of fraud and waste in Medicaid," and the Texas Republican instead pivoted to complaining that spending levels were higher in 2025 compared to 2021 and argued that "significant amounts of that is waste, fraud, and abuse." Hunt again appeared skeptical that Republicans could "cut $700 billion without touching law-abiding American citizens who are entitled to their benefits under Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid."
"There is plenty of us to be able to go find to find the waste, fraud and abuse. Make sure it's going to the right people," Roy said. He emphasized that "Elon [Musk] was just simply saying" that there is plenty of room to cut fraudulent spending across earned benefits programs.
At that point, Hunt reminded Roy that President Trump "on the campaign trail said over and over and over and over again that he's not going to cut Social Security and he's not going to cut Medicare."
"Where are you on this?" Hunt asked. "I mean, do you stand with the president on that, or do you stand with what Elon Musk is apparently saying here?"
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"Well, again, let me be clear about what Elon is saying," Roy said. "He's saying find the waste, fraud and abuse, the duplication and those things that you can find in the —"
"— But that's not what he's saying," Hunt continued. "I want, I just want to know, like, are you with with President Trump on cutting Medicare and Social Security, on not doing that."
"But to be clear, that is what Elon was talking about," Roy responded. "And on Social Security, under what we're going to deal with in terms of reconciliation, we're legally not allowed to talk about Social Security, touch Social Security under the law. Medicare: The president is saying we're going to preserve the benefits for people who have paid into Medicare. And now we need to get busy finding what we can in food stamps and Medicaid under the reconciliation process and get the tax policies in place."
Watch the exchange below, or by clicking this link.
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