ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos is facing criticism for his “embarrassing” questioning of Speaker Mike Johnson regarding the fight over government funding and whether Democrats want to make illegal immigrants eligible for Medicaid. 

A former Trump White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, appeared on his morning podcast, “The Morning Meeting,” and had sharp criticism for Mr. Stephanopoulos, who earlier that morning, on “Good Morning America,” had lectured Mr. Johnson on the Democrats’ proposal to keep the government funded.

Mr. Spicer’s co-host, the political journalist Mark Halperin, played a portion of the “Good Morning America” interview with Mr. Johnson in which Mr. Stephanopoulos — a former Democratic operative and Clinton White House senior aide — stated as fact the Democrats’ talking points about their proposal, saying, “The Democratic proposal is designed to prevent millions of Americans from losing their health insurance, losing Medicaid coverage, or paying higher healthcare premiums. Why are you against that?”

Mr. Spicer said over the video, “Oh my God!”

While Mr. Stephanopoulos insisted he made a “factual” statement, Mr. Johnson called it an “absurd statement” as he said that Republicans wanted to pass a “clean, nonpartisan continuing funding resolution” to keep the government open, which did not address health care.

By contrast, he noted that Democrats were pushing for a provision to roll back changes to Medicaid eligibility requirements passed as part of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Mr. Johnson said that getting rid of that provision would lead to illegal immigrants being covered by Medicaid. Democrats and left-wing media outlets have said that illegal immigrants are already ineligible for Medicaid and that Republicans’ argument is based on a falsehood. However, Mr. Johnson says that the previous eligibility requirements did not actually prevent illegal immigrants from enrolling in Medicaid.

Mr. Spicer said, “I gotta be honest with you. The last two weeks have shown that ABC has decided to go full MSNBC. It’s embarrassing. The idea that [Mr. Stephanopoulos] thinks he’s a host, he should’ve been back behind the podium for that. That was embarrassing.” (As the Clinton White House’s communications director, Mr. Stephanopoulos once occupied “the podium” in the White House press briefing room.)

Mr. Spicer pointed out that Congresswoman Maxine Waters told reporters that “health care” should be available for “all people.”

The managing editor of NewsBusters, Curtis Houck, shared the Stephanopoulos interview on X and wrote, “This right here — discussing the government shutdown — is why the right hates the media. It’s loaded questions like this from partisans posing as journalists.”

ABC News declined to comment. 

It’s just the latest incident of anti-MAGA and anti-Trump bias displayed by Mr. Stephanopoulos, who’s believed to earn about $25 million a year to work 19 minutes a day (he is rarely seen outside the first half hour of “Good Morning America,” which actually ends at 7:19 due to commercials and local news cut-ins occupying the next 11 minutes). 

Late last year, Disney paid Mr. Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit he brought against the entertainment giant after Mr. Stephanopoulos falsely and repeatedly said on his Sunday morning program, “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” which he hosts on some Sundays (after taking Fridays off), that Mr. Trump had been “found liable for rape.” 

Mr. Stephanopoulos also played a key role in the campaign by elite Democrats to force President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 campaign. The pundit — days after he did a sympathetic post-debate interview with Mr. Biden, during which he seemed to be trying to convince him to leave with his head held high — was approached by a passerby on a Manhattan street and told him that he felt Joe Biden could not make it through a full second term. The video ended up on TMZ. In a statement, Mr. Stephanopoulos said he regretted having spoken to the passerby, but did not recant.

Other mainstream media outlets are also under fire for being rude to Mr. Johnson.  Another conservative account on X, Media Lies, accused CNN’s Kaitlan Collins of trying to “obscure the truth” of the shutdown.

During an interview with Mr. Johnson, Ms. Collins noted that illegal immigrants were prohibited from enrolling in Medicaid. She suggested that rolling back the provisions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” would “only affect people who have legal status,” such as asylum seekers.

Ms. Collins said, “The point about giving people who are here illegally health care is not exactly what is in their proposal. It’s immigrants with legal status, and you’re just disagreeing about who’s eligible.”

Mr. Johnson said, “It is 100 percent what their proposal [says].”

Addressing the argument that federal law already prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid benefits, Mr. Johnson said, “Federal law was not being enforced. That’s the whole point. We had to fine-tune that so that we could strengthen the healthcare program.”

CNN did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.