Mike Johnson Accidentally Lets Slip Why He Won’t Fund Food Stamps
Mike Johnson accidentally gave away his whole game.
By Edith Olmsted/The New Republic
October 30, 2025
3:57 p.m. ET
House Speaker Mike Johnson admitted Thursday that feeding the hungry would mess up his political game.
CNN host Dana Bash asked Johnson why he wouldn’t consider moving money around to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which will stop receiving federal funds at the start of November. The House speaker accidentally revealed Republicans are using the program as leverage to end the government shutdown.
“Because if you deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government, Chuck Schumer and the radicals over there will continue to play games with people’s paychecks, their livelihoods,” Johnson said. “And if you do just part of this, it will reduce pressure for them to do all of it, to do their basic job, and that is reopen the government.”
It seems clear that Democrats aren’t the ones playing games with people’s livelihoods, but instead it is Republicans who are holding SNAP benefits hostage from 42 million Americans in order to make the opposition bend. And SNAP is a hostage Republicans are more than willing to kill—they’ve already voted to gut nearly $300 billion from the program through 2034.
Earlier Thursday, Johnson claimed that President Donald Trump had already done everything he could to mitigate the harm. But in fact, the Trump administration turned back on its own policy by claiming without precedent that it cannot legally use SNAP contingency funds to keep the essential program afloat during a government shutdown.
Instead, the Trump administration has set up a false dilemma, asserting that the government can’t continue to fund SNAP benefits without draining funds from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, which is currently being paid for by tariff money. Meanwhile, Trump had no problem moving funds to pay for military service members’ paychecks.
By Edith Olmsted/The New Republic
October 30, 2025
3:57 p.m. ET
House Speaker Mike Johnson admitted Thursday that feeding the hungry would mess up his political game.
CNN host Dana Bash asked Johnson why he wouldn’t consider moving money around to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which will stop receiving federal funds at the start of November. The House speaker accidentally revealed Republicans are using the program as leverage to end the government shutdown.
“Because if you deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government, Chuck Schumer and the radicals over there will continue to play games with people’s paychecks, their livelihoods,” Johnson said. “And if you do just part of this, it will reduce pressure for them to do all of it, to do their basic job, and that is reopen the government.”
It seems clear that Democrats aren’t the ones playing games with people’s livelihoods, but instead it is Republicans who are holding SNAP benefits hostage from 42 million Americans in order to make the opposition bend. And SNAP is a hostage Republicans are more than willing to kill—they’ve already voted to gut nearly $300 billion from the program through 2034.
Earlier Thursday, Johnson claimed that President Donald Trump had already done everything he could to mitigate the harm. But in fact, the Trump administration turned back on its own policy by claiming without precedent that it cannot legally use SNAP contingency funds to keep the essential program afloat during a government shutdown.
Instead, the Trump administration has set up a false dilemma, asserting that the government can’t continue to fund SNAP benefits without draining funds from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, which is currently being paid for by tariff money. Meanwhile, Trump had no problem moving funds to pay for military service members’ paychecks.
