I would love to know how Donald Trump’s loyal supporters will talk their way around this one.

Start with these facts: Trump’s budget bill, approved Tuesday by the Senate after his muscular arm-twisting, would cut Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over the next decade, the largest cut in the history of the program by far.

The Congressional Budget Office says the bill would cause 12 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next decade, with companion cuts to Obamacare bumping the number to 17 million. Last minute changes in the Senate bill, Democrats say, would increase the casualties to 20 million, wiping out about half of the gains made under Obamacare.

Now let’s look at Trump’s repeated and explicit promises.

On Meet the Press on May 4, he said he would veto any bill that cut Medicaid, adding that he won’t have to “because they’re not cutting it.”

On Sean Hannity’s show on Feb. 18, he was asked about his plans for Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare, and he said, “None of that stuff is going to be touched.”

Before a cabinet meeting on Feb. 26, he again promised he would not cut Medicaid, Social Security or Medicare: “I have said it so many times you shouldn’t be asking me those questions,” he told reporters.

Now, I’m not a lawyer, but that sure sounds like perjury to me, from the guy who supposedly tells it like it is.

A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

A few Republicans were at least honest enough to admit what the party was doing. Sen. Thom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina, knew it would end his career but felt compelled to speak anyway before announcing he would not seek another term.

“It is inescapable that this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made,” he said on the Senate floor. “What do I tell 663,000 people (in his state) in two years, three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore?”

As often happens with a lie, this one compels more lies. These cuts, we are told, are aimed at those loafs on the couch who don’t work, who collect their Medicaid benefits while playing video games all day. And sure, it’s reasonable to expect those receiving benefits to show taxpayers some respect by at least trying to support themselves. That was the core idea behind the bipartisan welfare reform signed by Bill Clinton in 1996.

But people on Medicaid don’t get any cash. If you defraud Social Security, or traditional welfare, you get a check in the mail. If you defraud Medicaid, you get treatment when you’re sick. That’s all. Is denying care the kind of leverage we really want to use?

And are millions of Americans really loafing, or are Republicans playing their old game, casting low-income families as moral failures rather than decent people with lousy jobs, or none at all?

NEWS FLASH: THE POOR WORK

Most poverty in America today occurs in working families. And most people on Medicaid work (64 percent) or they are disabled, or caring for a child or elderly parent. What about those who do seasonal work, or live in a job dessert, or lose their jobs because their cars break down or the kid gets sick? What about people who weren’t functional enough to get their paperwork in order every time?

“We’re talking about real people here, and this is all based on a lie,” says Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the ranking Democrats on the Committee and Commerce. “They need to make these tax cuts for billionaires and they’re paying for it on the backs of the little guy.”

FRAUD? YES. LOOK HERE.

Here’s another lie: The bill is all about cutting fraud. As it happens, what fraud exists in Medicaid is mostly the work of doctors and hospitals, not the people who will lose coverage. That’s the conclusion of annual joint investigations by the Department of Justice and the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The inspector general found, overall, that about 5 percent of Medicaid payments are flawed in some way – by fraud, innocent mistakes, or missing paperwork. So, last year, that means $31 billion of payments were improper, and $580 billion were up to snuff.

If Republicans went at the $31 billion by beefing up enforcement, then count me in. But that’s not the strategy. They are instead using this as an excuse to knock down the whole house.

And the reason couldn’t be more obvious: This $1 trillion cut is roughly equal to the tax cuts that will go to those earning more than $500,000 under this bill. To me, it’s astonishing that someone could look across the landscape in America today, where inequality rages, and have the nerve to call this beautiful.

Trump won the vote of those earning less than $50,000 a year, just the group he’s now targeting with these cuts. Here’s hoping they realize, sometime before next year’s elections, that he’s lying to them, that his real friends are the billionaires, not the truck drivers.

Moran is a national political columnist for Advance Local and the former editorial page editor/columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be emailed at [email protected].