By John Binder

Copyright breitbart

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) admitted that the government shutdown fight is over Democrats seeking to provide free health care to illegal aliens — paid for by American taxpayers.

In an interview with Fox Business this week, Khanna said the government has shut down in part because Democrats are looking to make it easier for illegal aliens to secure taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits.

Khanna, though, tried to downplay the issue by claiming only a small amount of taxpayer funding is going toward subsidizing healthcare benefits for illegal aliens.

WATCH — JD Vance Debunks Democrats Shutdown LIES:

“In terms of the healthcare, the reality is they are just not being honest. The amount of money that actually is going towards people who are undocumented is such a small portion of the Medicaid cuts or the Affordable Care Act, if at all,” Khanna told Maria Bartiromo.

“And so we can argue that point, but the reality is, even the Vice President can acknowledge, that anyone who looks at the numbers will acknowledge this — 90 to 95 percent of the funding we’re talking about is talking about funding for American citizens,” Khanna said.

Other Democrats have made similar admissions over the government shutdown.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was asked, “Are Democrats demanding health care for illegal aliens?” to which she responded, “Democrats are demanding health care for everybody,” implying that illegal aliens are included.

As Breitbart News has reported, forcing American taxpayers to provide free health care to illegal aliens would cost citizens anywhere from $23 billion to $66 billion every year — a potentially up to $660 billion bill for taxpayers every decade.

It is estimated that Americans are forced to subsidize about $18.5 billion of yearly medical costs for illegal aliens living in the United States.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.