Several Democrats have attempted to blame President Donald Trump and Republicans for the ongoing government shutdown, as funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is set to expire at the end of the month, affecting millions of Americans.
Sens. Alex Padilla (D-CA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were among the Democrats who criticized Trump for “letting kids go hungry.”
While Democrats are casting blame on Trump and Republicans for the government shutdown, which has stretched into its 28th day, Senate Democrats voted for the 13th time against a clean continuing resolution (CR) that would have reopened the government, according to the Hill.
Per the outlet, the CR, which needs “60 votes to advance,” received 54 votes, including votes from Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Sen. Angus King (I-ME).
“Trump has the emergency funding available to keep SNAP running next month, but he’s choosing to use food insecurity as a weapon in this government shutdown,” Padilla wrote in a post on X. “Americans are going to go hungry because Republicans want leverage. It’s cruel. Democrats will keep fighting to lower costs and protect health care.”
In a post on X, Kim responded to a post of a video in which House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) stated that “Democrats are required to open the government,” adding that since “60 votes control the Senate, not a bare majority,” Republicans are not in complete control of the government.
“Actually… they are,” Kim wrote in his post. “Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. The least the Speaker could do is bring the House back into session to work and negotiate for the people they claim to serve.”
“Trump has billions at his disposal to continue SNAP benefits, but instead he’s letting kids go hungry and using hardworking Americans as political pawns,” Kelly wrote in a post on X. “It’s time to quit the games and come to the table so we can reopen the government and stop health care costs from spiking.”
“This regime has the power to fund SNAP, and they are choosing not to,” Hirono wrote in a post on X. “USDA can legally reallocate its funding to ensure 42 million Americans don’t lose the food assistance they rely on. I wrote to @SecRollins demanding that SNAP be funded to ensure families do not go hungry.”
“Millions of hungry families are about to lose SNAP benefits to buy food,” Schumer wrote in a post on X. “There are $5 billion in emergency funds that could be used right now to ensure that parents and kids don’t go hungry when SNAP runs out this Saturday.”
Schumer added that Trump has ordered his administration “not to use this funding” to address the SNAP funding issue.
Breitbart News’s Hannah Knudsen reported that on Tuesday, Johnson “laid out” several truths that Americans should know about the ongoing shutdown. The truths included the points that “Democrat votes are required to open government” and that “Democrats have voted 13 times to keep government closed,” among others.
“[You must] have 60 votes in the Senate,” Johnson said. “We only have 53 Republicans, so we must have Democrats to do it. The Democrats are out trying to claim that this is all on Republicans, because we control the government. We don’t control the Senate without 60 votes, so you have to have them now. They voted 13 times — those Senate Democrats, counting the House and the Senate together, they voted 13 times to keep the government closed.”
Johnson continued to note that Democrats were demanding “$200 billion in health benefits paid for the U.S. taxpayers to illegal aliens and non-citizens” be restored in exchange for reopening the government.
“We can’t do that,” Johnson added. “They want billions of dollars in wasteful programs to be returned to foreign countries, things that none of you would agree with. We’re not going to do that.”
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