Mike Johnson descends into PUBLIC PANIC as walls close in

It is beyond clear that Republicans have lost the narrative when it comes to keeping the government shut down because they would rather stay home than allow health care to be affordable. They've lost that fight. 78% of Americans say that they want ACA subsidies to be extended so that health care is affordable, and they want Republicans to negotiate that with Democrats to make it happen. So now Republicans have had to pivot.

And they're basically saying, now that the government is shut down, SNAP benefits won't go out to 42 million Americans starting November 1st, so you better reopen the government so that that food assistance can continue, meaning in effect, Republicans are creating a false choice. Either choose health care or choose food assistance. They are pitting the hungry against the sick and pretending that we need to choose. We haven't and we don't.

And the fact that Republicans are presenting this as the problem puts their depravity and shamelessness on full display. Which is why Mike Johnson has spent the last few days, including today, fielding questions like this.

Can I just ask you, because you mentioned it, that you all have found ways to pay members of the military, which people understand, and WIC, which people also understand. But why are you drawing the line now on 40 million Americans who literally will not be able to eat without government assistance? Why not help them in the short term? And why are they-

I'm not drawing the line. Wait a minute. Wait. I reject the premise of the question. I'm not drawing the line. The Democrats are drawing the line. If we had a contingency fund that we could use,

that would be done. The White House has demonstrated over and over, the executive branch, all the cabinet secretaries are doing everything they can to mitigate and reduce the pain. But that ability is not available for SNAP because the contingency fund had to be prior authorized by Congress.

Well, they say that's not what the law shows.

No, well, that's ridiculous.

Certainly the administration has shown that they are very happy to move money around without Congress saying yes.

No, Dan, it's just simply not true. It's already been adjudicated. When they tried to do that in the first Trump administration, the GAO, for example, determined it was illegal. And the Democrats, when they voted against the Clean Sea Art, they voted down that possibility. So it is not legally available to do that. Believe me, the White House has already demonstrated over and over they would use it if it was available. It's not.

The Democrats have put the American people in this crisis and they are the ones that have the power to end it.

They could do it today if they feel enough pressure to do so. They simply can't do anything to fix this. Only small problem, there is a contingency fund that will solve this exact problem. And it's a contingency fund that the Trump administration itself used in 2019. Here's a headline from Fox News proving exactly that. So when the Trump administration and House Republicans like Mike Johnson claim that the funds are somehow not available to them, they are lying because they want to make everybody

think that there's no choice here and that the government MUST be reopened, with no health care deal, to keep those SNAP benefits coming. Again, that is a lie. In fact, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the administration's assertion that it cannot use SNAP's contingency reserves to cover regular SNAP benefits is contrary to the plain language of the law. Prior Trump administration practice, including as recently as a few weeks ago in the Agriculture

Department's lapse of funding plan, which the agency has since removed from its website, the first Trump administration's understanding has communicated repeatedly in multiple USDA documents and confirmed by the Government Accountability Office, that contingency funds could be used for SNAP benefits during the 2018-2019 shutdown, previous administrations understanding that contingency funds could be used for SNAP benefits during a shutdown, under past shutdowns, during both Republican

and Democratic administrations, SNAP benefits have always been provided, using available funding sources to prevent a break in benefits. While it is not clear whether past administrations used the contingency reserve or instead used other resources, making use of the contingency reserve unnecessary, the guidance documents from past shutdowns or near shutdowns makes it clear that the SNAP contingency reserve was available to cover regular SNAP benefits.

In other words, think about what they're doing. They are playing make-believe here that the only way to continue food assistance to 42 million Americans is to reopen the government and to do so without relenting on ACA subsidies. Again, they are creating a false choice here that it's either food or healthcare. The reality is that they don't care about either program because they don't think the government should be in the business in getting involved in healthcare or feeding people.

That is the fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats believe the government should provide for a basic minimum standard of living. Republicans believe that the government should exist to heap benefits onto the rich so that those benefits can trickle down in some continuation of a 45-year-long failed experiment, that is trickle-down economics. And so that is why they have no qualms about putting both food assistance and health care

on the chopping block, because at the end of the day, they want out of the business of both. And they know that if they can exploit the pain that people feel, or are about to feel, they can use that to get the government reopened without a deal on health care, and that will put zero pressure on them to negotiate ACA subsidies in the future. The Republicans know that they just need to get over this hump and they'll be one big

step closer to finally hobbling the ACA for good. And they are using hungry people as a way to get there. In fact, you need further proof that Mike Johnson's lying? A federal judge now seems poised to intervene, exposing completely this Republican lie by saying quote, Congress has put money in an emergency fund for an emergency, and it's hard for me to understand how this isn't an emergency when there is no money.

In other words, there is money. There is an emergency fund created for exactly this moment. It's just that Republicans don't want to use it because they WANT to exploit hunger to score a government shutdown win. If depravity had a face, it would be Mike Johnson, Donald Trump, and the Republicans. Which makes statements like these all the more ridiculous.

During the last shutdown in 2019, it was the first Trump administration, and they made sure that in the second month of the shutdown, SNAP benefits would go out. They had them sent early. Why do you think they shouldn't do that this time?

Well, Mr. President, this administration has done exactly what it did in the first term, and that is bend over backwards to make sure that we mitigate the harm. We explained here yesterday that any administration in a shutdown scenario has figuratively a control panel of pain dials. In the Obama administration, 2013, when they shut it down, they turned all the dials to 10.

They wanted it to hurt. And so remember famously they put the yellow crime tape around the World War II memorial and prevented aging veterans from going and visiting these landmarks. They made it hurt. President Trump has done exactly the opposite. I mean, he's done everything he can.

He's ordered all of his cabinet secretaries to mitigate the harm. So for example, as you know, with WIC funding, they found a way to fund that with tariff revenue. We found a way to pay the troops once already in October, hopefully at the end of this month by moving money around. But it's very difficult to do. Those are not inexhaustible funds.

When Mike Johnson says the administration is doing now exactly what it did during the first term shutdown, he is lying. Again, here is the Fox News headline showing that they got those SNAP benefits out the first time. They are pretending that they can't do it now because they want pressure to build against the Democrats who are using their leverage to get the ACA health care subsidies extended.

And Republicans are saying, uh-oh, better open the government right now without a health care deal because otherwise 42 million Americans would go hungry and you wouldn't want that now, would you? For a man like Mike Johnson, who prides himself as being pious, I gotta ask, what would Jesus say about pitting the sick against the hungry in furtherance of your ultimate plan of helping neither? So I hope that everybody can see the game

that Republicans are playing right now. I hope you all can see the ease with which these motherfuckers will pit hungry people against sick people in furtherance of their political agenda. And I hope that no matter what your political affiliation is,

left, right, or center, that you can recognize who's trying to help you and who is exploiting your pain to consolidate more power for themselves. Before you go, if you enjoyed this content and you want to see more and support independent media, please subscribe to this channel. The subscribe button will be right here on the screen. But second, the reality is that we are now in a political environment where this administration

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