Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said that Democrats were using the suffering of Americans for “leverage” in the government shutdown.
Host Kristen Welker said, “I do want to ask you about the people who are suffering right now. You have talked about this, this SNAP, the food assistance program, roughly 42 million people, Senator, rely on this. That ran out of funds on November 1st. The Trump administration has fought this all the way up to the Supreme Court to not fully fund this critical food assistance program. What do you say to the allegations made by many Democrats that the Trump administration is simply weaponizing hunger?”
Lankford said, “Yeah, this is the spin. Literally, this is the painful spin that people across the country are saying: ‘I’m so sick of the politics.’ And that’s been just fixed. The problem is, 14 times we voted to reopen the government two weeks ago, we brought a bill that would fully fund SNAP for the entire year. Last week, we brought a bill that would just pay our federal employees. Democrats have voted no, no, no, no, every single time because the goal for them is leverage. If you listen to the things they say over and over again, they say people are suffering. But that gives us more leverage in our debate here.
He added, “Listen, people don’t want leverage. They want to get access to food. And I would only say President Trump diverted tariff revenue into the wake, funding women, infants and children’s funding to be able to make sure their programs stay solid. The problem with Snap is you would have to take funds away from the disaster aid that’s there if we have a hurricane that comes in, or take it away from the school lunch program. So it’s this terrible choice the president has to make, take it away from the school lunch program or deal with SNAP, he said over and over, open the government. That’s the solution.”
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