Donald Trump Would Rather Starve Children than Lower Health Care Costs

A cruel and cynical strategy to try end the shutdown

That’s a pretty aggressive headline, huh?

Sounds like Resistance clickbait, right?

Well, I am not above dabbling in clickbait from time to time. What’s the point of writing this newsletter several times a week if you never open it? However, this headline is not just irresistible—it’s also an accurate description of what’s happening.

Today, the government shutdown reached its 30th day. While there are reports of positive conversations, there is no immediate end in sight. This shutdown is on the cusp of becoming the longest in history. Several factors have contributed to the prolonged stalemate. The main reason is that Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House out of session for more than a month to prevent members from negotiating with Democrats (and to prevent the release of the Epstein files). Another reason is that some of the usual pain points that typically end shutdowns have been avoided. For example, Trump has used extraordinary (and possibly extra-legal) measures to pay the troops.

That comes to an end this weekend. For the first time in history, the government will refuse to pay food benefits to the poorest Americans. The Trump administration is refusing to distribute payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, which feed more than 40 million Americans. Children will go hungry in the most prosperous country on Earth.

To be clear, this is not simply a consequence of the shutdown. It’s a specific decision made by the Trump administration to exert political leverage. To Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans, forcing poor children to go hungry is preferable to negotiating with Democrats over lowering health care costs for millions of Americans.

This is a momentous story with incredibly dire consequences, and—like so many during this presidency—it will likely go unnoticed by the vast majority of Americans.

The decision to deliberately make people go hungry to score political points is so callous, so cruel, so cynical, and fundamentally un-American. I want everyone in the country to know this is happening, and that will only occur if all of us tell as many people as possible.

To make matters worse, Republicans are gaslighting the country about what they’re doing.

This year, I plan to write more quick posts about stories you may have missed that have real political significance.

I’ll make all of these posts free for everyone so they’re easier to share. If you want to support this work, become a paid subscriber.

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A Cynical Choice

The GOP talking point is that the failure to send food assistance is a direct result of Democrats refusing to open the government. Let’s put aside the fact that Republicans don’t actually need Democratic votes to fund the government; 50 Republicans could do it if they were willing to change Senate rules. Stopping these essential benefits is a political choice made by this White House because they think it will force Democrats to open the government without any concessions on the expiring Obamacare tax credits.

This is complete and total bullshit. Here are the facts:

• Even during a shutdown, SNAP is not out of money. There is a $5 billion SNAP contingency fund typically used for emergencies like this one.

• At the outset of the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture published a memo stating it would use these funds to ensure benefit payments went out if the shutdown persisted.

• That memo recently disappeared from the website.

• Now, the administration claims—without evidence or reasoning—that they can’t use those emergency funds, even though previous legal opinions, including from Trump’s first term, make clear that the contingency fund can be used during a shutdown.

• Democrats and Republicans have proposed bills to fund SNAP for the duration of the shutdown. Senate Republicans—doing the White House’s bidding—blocked those bills from coming to a vote.

This is a choice being made by Republicans. They could pay out these benefits and prevent children from going hungry, but they won’t—because they are so committed to ensuring that people’s health care premiums double next year.

Make it make sense.

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If Democrats don’t make this the defining story of the shutdown, no one else will. Republicans are counting on the chaos to distract from their cruelty. We cannot let them succeed. Tell people what’s happening. Share this story. Make this political choice—to let children go hungry—unavoidable and unforgettable.

Please help spread the word by sharing this post with as many people as possible.