Huge Savings
MN-06 Daily: June 19, 2026
On Fox News this week, Rep. Tom Emmer pointed to a new federal watchdog report to argue Washington is finally curbing improper payments — and credited last year’s tax law with ending Medicaid access for undocumented immigrants. The report he was citing, and the law he was crediting, each tell a more complicated story than the one he told.
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7 posts across two accounts, plus 2 retweets. One national TV appearance. Fraud or fraudsters invoked at least five times in the interview alone. Not a word on what the report he cited actually attributes the rise to.
1,044 days since Rep. Emmer’s last in-person town hall — August 2023 — Hamburg, MN CD6 primary: 54 days out — Emmer v. Foley, August 11
What He Actually Did
On June 16, Emmer appeared on Fox News Channel’s America Reports to discuss a Government Accountability Office report on federal improper payments. He posted the interview to his own YouTube channel this week, and promoted it on June 18: “Earlier this week, I joined @AmericaRpts to discuss the recent GAO report revealing almost $200 BILLION in federal overpayments last year.”
In the segment, Emmer made four claims worth checking against their own sources:
That improper payments are “$24 billion higher than the year before” despite recent reforms, with “a lot of work left to be done.”
That under last year’s tax law, “illegals can no longer access Medicaid. Huge savings.”
That his home state is “ground zero for this kind of nonsense,” with “a Somali fraudster getting convicted every week.”
That “nine billion dollars or more” had been “stolen under the Tim Walz administration.”
The GAO report is real. So is the underlying problem. What the report says, and what the law does, are the questions.
“Huge Savings”: What the Law Actually Does
Emmer’s words: “We’ve done an amazing job in Congress, especially with the big, beautiful tax cut bill… putting new restrictions, new surveillance-type requirements. For instance, illegals can no longer access Medicaid. Huge savings.”
The strongest version of the point: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act did tighten immigrant eligibility for federal health programs, and the Congressional Budget Office projects more than $200 billion in federal savings over the next decade from those provisions. The law also reduces the federal share of Emergency Medicaid reimbursement. There are real fiscal changes here.
But the specific claim — that the law stopped undocumented immigrants from accessing Medicaid — does not match the record on three counts:
They were already ineligible. Undocumented immigrants have been barred from federally funded, non-emergency Medicaid for decades. That was true long before last year’s law. The only federal Medicaid dollars that reach this population go to hospitals through Emergency Medicaid, for emergency care the law already requires.
The people the law actually removes are largely lawfully present. Beginning October 1, 2026, the law narrows federal Medicaid eligibility to green-card holders, Cuban and Haitian entrants, and certain Pacific-nation residents — cutting off refugees, asylees, humanitarian parolees, and some trafficking survivors who were previously eligible.
It hasn’t taken effect. The Medicaid eligibility changes do not begin until October 1, 2026. As of this week, nothing has changed.
So “illegals can no longer access Medicaid” describes a state of affairs that was already the case for non-emergency coverage, attributes it to a law whose relevant provisions are still more than three months from taking effect, and folds in the lawfully present immigrants the law actually affects.
What the GAO Report Says
Emmer’s words: improper payments are “$24 billion higher than the year before… in spite of those reforms that were done a year ago.”
The figure is accurate. GAO reported about $186 billion in improper payments across 64 programs in fiscal year 2025 — roughly $24 billion more than the prior year’s $162 billion.
What the segment left out is GAO’s own explanation for that increase. In the report and its accompanying summary, GAO attributes the rise partly to better reporting — some programs that did not report in FY2024 did so in FY2025 — and partly to Medicaid eligibility redeterminations and provider screening as pandemic-era expanded coverage was phased out. GAO also notes that, while the one-year number rose, improper payments are down compared with the last five years and back in line with pre-pandemic levels.
Emmer presented the $24 billion increase as evidence that reforms have not yet worked. GAO presents most of the same increase as a reporting and pandemic-unwinding effect on a measure that has actually returned to its pre-COVID baseline. Both things can be true at once — the problem is long-standing, and nine of ten reform recommendations GAO made to Congress in 2022 remain open — but the report he was citing does not support the direction-of-travel he described.
From a National Report to a Minnesota Story
The GAO report is a national document. It examines 64 federal programs across 15 agencies; the largest sources of error are Medicare, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and SNAP; and it points to causes such as eligibility-verification gaps and legacy computer systems, some dating to the 1970s. It names no state as “ground zero,” and it does not mention Minnesota.
In the interview, Emmer turned the national figure into a state story — describing Minnesota as “ground zero,” referencing “a Somali fraudster getting convicted every week,” and repeating that “nine billion dollars or more” was “stolen under the Tim Walz administration.”
MN-06 Watch has documented the $9 billion figure before: it traces to media arithmetic — roughly half of the $18 billion spent across 14 high-risk Medicaid programs since 2018 — applied to a federal prosecutor’s conditional estimate (”on the order of half or more… but we’ll see”). No prosecutor has confirmed it as a finding. We have also noted that the federal government’s own data (CMS) put Minnesota’s improper Medicaid payment rate at 2.1 percent — below the 6.1 percent national average.
What He Tweeted
What He Didn’t Mention
GAO’s own explanation for the increase he cited: improved agency reporting and the wind-down of pandemic-era Medicaid coverage.
That improper payments are down over the last five years and back to pre-pandemic levels.
That undocumented immigrants were already ineligible for federally funded, non-emergency Medicaid before last year’s law — and that the law’s Medicaid eligibility changes do not take effect until October 1, 2026.
The Questions
Submitted to Rep. Emmer’s office via the official contact form.
You said last year’s law means “illegals can no longer access Medicaid.” Undocumented immigrants were already ineligible for federally funded, non-emergency Medicaid, and the law’s eligibility changes — which apply to lawfully present immigrants such as refugees and asylees — do not take effect until October 1, 2026. What specific Medicaid access for undocumented immigrants did the law end?
The GAO report you cited attributes much of the $24 billion increase to improved agency reporting and the wind-down of pandemic-era Medicaid coverage, and notes improper payments are down over the past five years. Do you dispute GAO’s own explanation?
That report covers 64 federal programs across 15 agencies and names no state. On what basis did you describe Minnesota as “ground zero”?
You again cited “$9 billion or more” stolen under the Walz administration. No prosecutor has confirmed that figure as a finding. What is your source for it?
It has been 1,044 days since your last in-person town hall in MN-06 (Hamburg, August 2023). With the August 11 primary now 54 days away, will you hold one and take these questions directly from the people you represent?
We are still awaiting a response to all previous submissions.
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Sources
Rep. Tom Emmer, Fox News Channel, America Reports, June 16, 2026 (transcript independently produced by MN-06 Watch; video at the source URL).
U.S. Government Accountability Office, Payment Integrity: Agencies’ Estimated Improper Payments Increased to $186 Billion in Fiscal Year 2025 (GAO-26-108694), April 27, 2026; GAO WatchBlog, June 4, 2026.
National Immigration Law Center; Commonwealth Fund; American Immigration Council — immigrant eligibility for Medicaid and OBBBA changes, 2025–2026.
Congressional Budget Office / Paragon Health Institute — projected federal savings from OBBBA immigrant-eligibility provisions.
MN-06 Watch archive — prior documentation of the “$9 billion” figure and CMS Minnesota improper-payment data.
@GOPMajorityWhip and @tomemmer posts, June 17–19, 2026 (MN-06 Watch tweet archive).
MN-06 Watch uses AI tools to assist with research and editing. Facts are verified against primary sources; editorial judgments are the author’s.
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Lying is an essential requirement to stay in Trump’s good graces and Tom Emmer is excelling at it for that reason.
Thank you for the deep dive.