Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said President Donald Trump was using hungry people as bargaining chips in the government shutdown.
Host Jake Tapper said, “So there are a lot of repercussions for this government shutdown. obviously, air travel is a mess and then SNAP benefits, food benefits, food SNAP benefits for 42 million Americans. As we sit here, the Trump administration is fighting a court order to tell them to pay out full snap benefits. vice president jd vance called the judge’s ruling that that the U.S. needs to pay, that the Trump administration needs to pay these SNAP benefits. He called the ruling absurd. He said the administration is, quote, not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge. Now, I know that’s 5 million Californians receive SNAP benefits.”
Newsom said, “5.5. and the difference is in California, they were fully restored in my state through November. That said, they obviously have not been in the vast majority of states. But think about the state of mind of the vice president. How do they, how do they honestly, how do you square the circle when you go to a prayer breakfast? How do you square the circle? I mean, Old Testament, New Testament, what’s the fundamental thing that connects? From John to Matthew to Proverbs it’s this notion of hunger feeding the poor, the sick, the tired, this it’s not an option. It’s central to advancing God’s will. I mean, the fundamental point that we’ll be using, because this is what it’s about. The federal government said it in the lawsuit that they want to use it as a bargaining chip, a bargaining chip to end this shutdown. That’s shameful. It’s never happened in U.S. history.”
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