Bannon Warns Trump and Musk: There’s ‘A Lot of MAGAs on Medicaid’ and They ‘Can’t Take a Meat Axe To It’ 😅

Story by Michael Luciano • 22h • 2 min read

Steve Bannon offered a warning to President Donald Trump and Elon Musk on Thursday, saying Medicaid is a “complicated” program to cut.

Trump tapped Musk to lead the “Department of Government Efficiency,” a roving group that has gone from department to department ostensibly to cut costs by laying off personnel and freezing money already been appropriated by Congress. The moves have prompted a wave of lawsuits and a series of rebukes from judges.

On Thursday’s War Room, Bannon – who has long advocated for addressing federal deficits – said there appears to be “confusion and mayhem” in Washington. Musk has pledged to shave $2 trillion off the federal budget, which is running at a deficit of about $1.8 trillion. Such a cut would be massive considering federal spending totaled $6.9 trillion in 2024. More than $600 billion of that went to Medicaid – a government health insurance program for individuals with low incomes.

“Show me the trillion dollars in cuts,” Bannon said. “I don’t want to $2 trillion deficit. I want to see it cut in half. How’d you do it? What they’re talking about, the 1.5 trillion over 10 years, that’s $150 billion a year. Now, I realize this may be taken differently, but it’s $150 billion. It’s not gonna work.”

The former White House adviser in Trump’s first term went on to ask, “Where are the DOGE cuts? They’ve had enough time to identify at least the waste, fraud, abuse in these different organizations.” He added:

I think it’s generally confusion and mayhem on Capitol Hill. But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s some logic here and maybe they’re making some progress on this. But until we see the math, and I mean hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts, hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts, and stop whining about entitlements. Get into that discretionary spending. Get into the Pentagon.

Get into Medicaid. Medicaid, you got to be here because a lot of MAGAs on Medicaid. I’m telling you, if you don’t think so, you are dead wrong. Medicaid is going to be a complicated one. Just can’t take a meat axe to it, although I would love to.

Bannon has criticized Musk over the billionaire’s financial ties to the Communist Party in China, where Tesla operates a large factory in Shanghai. In 2023, Bannon called Musk a “phony” who is beholden to the Chinese Community Party.