California Governor Gavin Newsom sat down with Don Lemon and said something most politicians bury in bureaucratic language.
"We not only expanded Medicaid, but we're the only state in America providing universal healthcare regardless of pre-existing conditions, ability to pay, and your immigration status. And I know how offensive that is to people, and I get how controversial that is. We delivered that."
Here is what "we delivered" actually costs. California's Medi-Cal program now covers nearly 2 million people who are in the country illegally. The price tag for 2024-25: $9.5 billion from the state General Fund. The projection for 2025-26: $12.4 billion. That figure represents 28 percent of all General Fund spending on Medi-Cal — more than a quarter of the state's entire Medicaid budget going to a population the federal government says has no legal right to be in the country.
California runs a structural budget deficit. Its roads rank among the worst in the nation. Its public schools score near the bottom of national reading and math assessments. And $12.4 billion a year is being spent on healthcare for people who are here illegally.
Now read the "I know how offensive that is to people" line again. That is not an acknowledgment of a reasonable disagreement. That is a governor telling California's taxpayers that he heard their objection, considered it, and overrode them — and is announcing that decision as an accomplishment on television.
There is a detail Newsom left out of the segment. In May 2025, his own administration proposed freezing Medi-Cal enrollment for illegal immigrants and introducing a $100-per-month premium starting in 2027. The reason given: the program's costs had become unsustainable and the state's budget could not absorb them. He tried to scale it back when the bill came due.
Then he went on television and called it his best work.
The people funding this program — California taxpayers watching their premiums climb as the system absorbed 2 million additional enrollees — are not a constituency Newsom is governing for. They are a line item in a budget he could not balance. The audience he is performing for lives in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Newsom wants to be president. The Don Lemon appearance is not governance. It is an audition. He is telling every progressive donor in America that he will take the program currently consuming 28 percent of California's Medicaid budget and apply it at the federal level — with 330 million Americans instead of 39 million Californians covering the tab.
The wealthiest state in the country could not sustain it. He tried to pull back on it when the numbers got too large to ignore. Now he is selling it as a national model.
That is not boldness. That is a politician spending money he knows is not there, bragging about it to people who will not see the bill, and running for the office that would let him send that bill to everyone.