House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday admitted that President Donald Trump and the Republican congressional majority are withholding food assistance to more than 40 million Americans as a bargaining chip in the government funding negotiations—a cruel move that will lead scores of people to go hungry.
Johnson made the comment during an appearance on CNN, in which host Dana Bash said that even some Republicans wanted the Trump administration to continue to pay Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, and asked why Johnson and Republicans were not working to ensure those benefits continue.
"Because if you deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government, [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer and the radicals over there will continue to play games with people’s paychecks, their livelihoods. And if you do just part of this, it will reduce the pressure for them to do all of it," Johnson said.
That sure sounds like he is deliberately holding food aid hostage as a way to force Senate Democrats to swallow the GOP's funding bill without any negotiating.
Legally speaking, there are billions in contingency funds available to the Trump administration to fund SNAP benefits in November, if they want to feed people.
In 2019, when the government was shut down for 35 days, Trump’s administration at the time used those contingency funds to make sure food assistance didn't lapse.
“At President Trump’s direction, we have been working with the Administration on this solution. It works and is legally sound. And we want to assure states, and SNAP recipients, that the benefits for February will be provided,” then-Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said in 2019.
But now, the new Trump administration is saying they cannot fund the program, and Johnson and congressional Republicans are going along with that false assertion.
"When it comes to SNAP, Democrats have argued you can use this contingency fund but the truth is there is no legal mechanism to do it," Johnson claimed on Thursday. "The president has lamented this."
A volunteer helps load a vehicle during a food distribution in San Antonio on Oct. 27.
Yeah, we’re sure Trump—who sits in his hideously gilded White House, where he’s building a massive ballroom—really cares about families going hungry.
Multiple Democratic-controlled states are calling Trump and the GOP’s bluff, however, and have sued to force the Trump administration to use the SNAP contingency funds in November.
"Even though there are billions of dollars in contingency funds that could be used to fund SNAP, the Trump Administration is using the government shutdown to suspend food stamp benefits for the first time in the program’s history. It’s not just cruel—it’s illegal," California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a post on X. "We’re going to court to require the Trump administration to use the available funding for November benefits. Millions of people are counting on us."
A federal judge heard arguments in that suit on Thursday and appeared to side with the states, meaning it's likely Trump could be forced to fund SNAP.
At the end of the day, Trump and congressional Republicans have already cut billions from SNAP funding via their "One Big Beautiful Bill."
Now, they're salivating at the chance to suspend SNAP benefits altogether.
