BREAKING: Trump hit with CONSEQUENCES after SNAP announcement

I'm joined now by the CEO of Democracy Forward, Sky Perryman. Sky, thanks so much for joining me.

Great to be here.

So, Donald Trump has made some news this election day by posting a truth social saying, in effect, that he is going to withhold SNAP benefits as leverage to be able to try and force some end to the government shutdown. So, he's basically using food assistance as a way to make sure that he can reopen the government and take people's health care away. So first and foremost, what are you doing in response to this?

Well, we're the ones that are representing at Democracy Forward. We are representing so many clients on a case that secured a court order that made it clear that the president could not deprive people of their SNAP benefits. And so that was the court order that came out on Friday and then a written order over the weekend. But now we're making sure the court has this information

in hand of what the president has said to ensure that the court's order is enforced. And so we're back in court. Our team is back in court today.

To what extent does this new post on Truth Social, does that impact the ongoing litigation? Like you see this and what's your initial thought as it relates to these ongoing cases?

Well, as it relates to the cases, it's clear. You know, the president doesn't get to ignore what the court said and the court made it very clear that the benefits had to be paid and they needed to be paid expeditiously because when you were talking about people's ability to access essential nutrition, this is not something that can wait while the

administration drags its feet. And so it's important that we take these things and make sure that the court has them in hand. So we're going to handle that in the courtroom. What it means, though, for people that are reaching out to us and for the American people is that the And I think that's a really important point. And I think that's a really important point. And I think that's a really important point.

And I think that's a really important point. And I think that's a really important point. And I think that's a really important point.

And I think that's a really important point. in order to try to score political points. And that is unacceptable. We believe it is immoral, which is not a word we use all the time at Democracy Forward, but we believe it is completely morally reprehensible. And then, of course, we know it's unlawful because the court has already found that.

Does this undermine any existing arguments that the Trump team is making in court?

I think it, you know, I think it might, and I think that's why you've seen the White House press secretary, as I understand it, has already been out trying to do some damage control right after he tweeted it, you know, trying to say that they will comply with the order. You know, what we want to make sure of is that the 42 million people in this country, many of whom are children, many of whom are working people, senior citizens and veterans, that those 42 million people get the essential nutrition that Congress has made clear they should unequivocally get, even in times of

a shutdown. And so that's what we are just laser focused on.

I want to throw a clip of Mike Johnson from today right up here on the screen.

People everywhere can see clearly who's fighting and voting here every day and delivering for them. And I'll say this clearly to every hardworking American in any place who's missed a paycheck, anyone who has been made to suffer because the services, the health services you rely upon, or the food and nutrition supplement for your family, anyone who is hurting, you have a home to the fact that within hours of Donald Trump posting on on

Truth Social that he's basically using SNAP benefits as leverage to get what he wants politically that you have Mike Johnson out there saying that you have a home in the Republican Party and that these people understand the pain you're going through?

Yeah, I mean, this is what we call classic gaslighting right? It is a classic gas lighting. People are suffering. We know who the cause of that suffering is. The president has come out and said it himself, but you can see it even in the court filings yesterday. They were in court saying they want to try to choose to partially fund snap, not fully chunks of fun snap, and that that could lead to delays in people getting essential nutrition. So it's very clear what this administration is doing, what the allies in Congress are doing. But then they want to blame, you know, they want to blame others for it.

And so the American people, I think, are quite wise to this. They're seeing what is happening before their eyes.

But but that's just classic gaslighting, I think, by the Speaker of the House. Can you talk about the depravity of the fact that it's not like they're just using this as a way to get the government open to try and enact some other unrelated parts of their agenda. They're using these SNAP benefits as a way to get the government open,

to make the Democrats feel the pain of what the American people are going through so that they can reopen the government without a deal on health care. And so this whole thing is to force through reopening the government without securing the extension of the ACA subsidies.

So in effect, as I said before, I mean, they are really pitting the sick against the hungry in this country. Just your general reaction to what we're seeing more broadly in the political space.

Yeah, I mean, this is again, this is the overreach of this administration and the overreach of this Congress and the American people are seeing it. And so you have the president going to extremes, putting military in the streets, doing any number of things, decimating the East Wing and the White House, doing any number of things to try to get the news cycle off of the fact that they're hitting people where it hurts and they're doing it intentionally.

This is the first time in United States history that the government has shut down when it has been controlled by one political party, which is the Republican Party. They're trying to place the blame. And what we are really focused on is trying to make sure that people get what they need while the president continues to play these games, understanding that he is going to have to be held accountable by the people.

You know, one excuse that Republicans are putting forward, uh, is this idea that, that there's a lot of abuse in the supplemental nutrition assistance program. And by the way, this is what they say for every program. It's just right. Right. Abuse.

We can't have Medicaid because it's, there's too much abuse. We can't have Medicare, we can have Social Security, everything is just too much news. There's been no prosecutions for any of this stuff, no fraud prosecution for any of this stuff, but apparently the whole system is just rife with fraud. Can you explain a little bit of what we're talking about as it relates to SNAP? What are these people getting that Republicans are trying to claim is just a system rife

with abuse or that people are trying to get rich off of SNAP. Yeah, I mean, there's no basis for those claims. And I'll just note that it's really, you know, it says something that you have this political party and the president claiming these things when you have the president trying to get the Department of Justice to give him 20, you know, 230 million dollars. I mean, we've seen that.

So I think that the corruption, there's levels and levels of it within this administration, but there's no basis to the claim that there is rampant corruption within SNAP. SNAP is a supplemental nutrition assistance program. It is for people who are unable, even when they are working, by the way, and we represent a lot of folks that are working people in this case, that are working people that cannot make ends meet because of what their wages are, because of the cyclical nature of employment. SNAP enables people to be able to get some assistance

in order to buy food and essentials. It is administered through the federal government. It is something that all Americans, Americans of all different backgrounds, Americans of all different beliefs, people that vote Republican, people that vote Democrat,

people that don't vote at all, folks that live in big cities, people that live in small towns. It is something that, you know, is available to everyone and 42 million Americans, including millions of children, senior citizens, working people, as well as our veterans, rely on SNAP. And so it's really baseless, the claims that are being made. And again, it's also just particularly ironic, I think, when you see the corruption that we've seen in this administration.

The Center for American Progress just recently put up, you know, a website where you can see how the Trump family is enriching itself during the time that he is in office. You have the president asking the Department of Justice to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of checks to him personally. And yet what they want to come after is an assistance program that has been supported in a bipartisan fashion and that is used by millions of Americans across the country.

One in eight Americans, and we're talking on average based on the most recent data from May of 2025, SNAP provides households with just over $350 a month on average. So this is not some pro, like if $350. Nobody's getting rich, right. So on average, $350, that's $187 per person per month.

I mean, if anybody watching can try to imagine surviving on $187 per person per month. I mean, just truly impossible. And the notion that this system is some way for people to undermine the system and get rich while at the same time, to your exact point,

we've got Donald Trump trying to pilfer the treasury to the tune of $230 million, which is to say nothing of the fact that he's spending his time rebuilding, building a $350 million ballroom, that he's encrusting the Oval Office with gold, that he's retrofitting-

All the Gatsby party in Mar-a-Lago.

Hosting Gatsby party, retrofitting to the tune of a billion dollars a jet that he got from Qatar, buying Gulfstream jets for Kristi Noem to the tune of $172 million. So example after example after example, the audacity of this Republican Party to vilify Snap while they are just living in opulence and literally hosting Gatsby-themed parties. I mean, you couldn't get more on the nose than that. And so, you know, it's truly like a level of audacity that I didn't think possible. All right. So on the legal front, given the fact that this is so timely, that this is not an issue

where people can afford to wait months or weeks or even days, how fast do you expect this litigation to move forward?

We're moving it fast. I mean, the court we filed a paper this morning, you know, out of concern for what the government put on file yesterday, where it made clear that there were going to be massive delays in people being able to receive SNAP benefits, which is not what the court ordered, where it chose to say that it was only going to partially fund benefits. And the court has already set a hearing for Thursday.

The government has to reply with their response by tomorrow. So this is a court that understands the court made clear. And by the way, another court also has made clear that this is this is time is of the essence here that the resources that SNAP provides, they are essential. They are not frivolous. And they are things that people need as they're entering a new month.

Well, I appreciate you taking the time today. And thanks for the work that you and the team at Democracy Forward are doing. And thanks for the work that you and the team at Democracy Forward are doing.

Thank you.