Weijia Jiang, the Senior White House Correspondent for CBS News, pressed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday to clarify President Donald Trump’s post earlier in the day, vowing to withhold SNAP benefits until the government is reopened.
Jiang asked, “There’s some confusion about SNAP benefits because the president just posted that they will only be given out when the ‘radical left Democrats’ open the government and not before. But just yesterday the administration said it would comply with the court order to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds by end of business day yesterday. So did the administration distribute that money or defy that court order?”
“No, the administration is fully complying with the court order. I just spoke to the president about it. The recipients of these SNAP benefits need to understand it’s going to take some time to receive this money because the Democrats have forced the administration into a very untenable position,” Leavitt replied, adding:
We are digging into a contingency fund that is supposed to be for emergencies, catastrophes, for war. And the president does not want to have to tap into this fund in the future. And that’s what he was referring to in his Truth Social post. So the Department of Agriculture, as per the latest SNAP payment in the judge’s order, put out guidance to states today on how to get that money to the recipients of SNAP. But it’s going to take some time.
The best way to get the full amount of SNAP benefits to those beneficiaries is for Democrats to reopen the government. So to anyone who is a SNAP beneficiary at home, who needs that assistance, and the president was just saying this is for people who are truly needy, who need food, who need this assistance from the United States government. Democrats are holding it up and making it difficult for the administration to get those payments out the door. So if you are at home and you want your SNAP benefits, call the Democrats and tell them to reopen the government and preserve that contingency fund for the future if this shutdown lingers on.
Look, the president does not want to have to continue to dip into a contingency fund that doesn’t even have enough money, by the way, to fund the full program. It takes nine billion to get the full scale of the benefits out the door. This contingency fund only has about five billion dollars in it, so again, Democrats need to reopen the government so we can get these benefits out the door for people who truly need them.
Trump’s Truth Social post read:
SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly “handed” to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT
Later in the briefing, other reporters pressed Leavitt on the same topic, dissatisfied with her answer and the apparent contradiction between Trump’s post and the admin’s vow to provide the benefits by following the court order to disperse them.
Watch the clip above.
