Trump Says He Can’t Fund SNAP Because America Has to Be “Liquid”

Donald Trump bizarrely claimed that the United States has to remain “very liquid” because the country could be hit by unforeseen problems at any time. 

Speaking from the White House’s East Room Thursday night, Trump told reporters that “our country has to remain very liquid because problems, catastrophes, wars—could be anything. We have to remain liquid. We can’t give everything away,” claiming that President Biden gave money away to “anybody who would ask,” including the “able-bodied.” 

Trump gave the answer after being asked about a court ruling requiring his administration to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, which 42 million low-income Americans depend on.

Trump seems to have no idea how the U.S. economy works, given that the country could just print more money if being “liquid” is really the main concern (it shouldn’t be). His jab at Biden seems to be based on right-wing complaints about “tax and spend” Democrats, and an attempt to evade criticism over his administration defying court rulings on SNAP.  

Under the current administration, the national debt is experiencing its highest rate of growth since the Covid-19 pandemic. This has only been compounded by the government shutdown, which is costing the country billions of dollars each week. Trump has no room to criticize his predecessor about spending, as his presidency is costing the country dearly. 

As inflation rises, layoffs surge, and SNAP benefits stop, President Trump told Americans point-blank that he does not want to hear about their affordability issues. 

“Talk about the cost of Thanksgiving, and the cost of living through Thanksgiving.… Our energy costs are way down, our groceries are way down, everything is way down. And the press doesn’t report it,” the president said last evening while taking questions from reporters. “You know, I call the Democrats conmen and women, they make up numbers. But when you look at the 25 percent reduction in costs for Thanksgiving between Biden and me … it’s the biggest reduction in cost in the history of that chart or whatever it is they do.”

The Thanksgiving cost numbers Trump is touting come directly from Walmart, which is selling a $40 Thanksgiving basket compared to a $55 one last year. But this year’s meal has less food in it too.  

“So I don’t wanna hear about the affordability,” Trump continued. “We’re getting close to $2 a gallon gasoline. With Biden it was $4.50, $5. Another thing, inflation. We had the worst inflation in the history of our country. Now we have virtually no inflation at all … so the affordability is much better with the Republicans.”

This short rant was ridden with lies. Everything is not “way down.” 

Inflation is still going up. This summer, Americans saw the biggest grocery price jump in over three years. Average grocery prices in September were around 2.7 percent higher than they were the year before and around 1.4 percent higher than they were when Trump got back into office in January. 

It’s truly a travesty that this man who campaigned on affordability, and on remembering the forgotten working class, is now telling those very same people to shut up and be happy while outright lying about the state of affordability in this country. It was already bad, and Trump has unquestionably made it worse. But he’d rather lie and finger-point than admit that and work to fix it.   

It appears that President Donald Trump’s angry social media posts have once again landed him in hot water in the courts: A judge ordered him Thursday to pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in full.

U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island delivered a scathing rebuke of Trump’s Truth Social post from Tuesday, when the president claimed that money for SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government.” The White House later clarified that the administration still intended to pay half of the benefits for November.

McConnell said that the president’s post was essentially an admission of his “intent to defy” his prior court order, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney on X. The judge’s order last week had required officials to obey the law and use the USDA’s contingency funds to pay for at least some SNAP benefits.

The judge said that Trump and his allies had openly admitted they were withholding funding for SNAP benefits for “political reasons.” Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson admitted that feeding the hungry would mess up his political game because it would “deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government.”

McConnell ordered the Department of Agriculture to pay for November’s SNAP benefits in full by Friday, warning that if the government wavered, “people will go hungry, food pantries will be burdened and … suffering will occur.” He added: “It’s likely that SNAP recipients are hungry as we sit here.”

At a White House press conference Thursday announcing lower costs for weight-loss drugs, Donald Trump decided to ask for part of a company. 

Trump was sitting at his desk in the Oval Office surrounded by health officials from his administration, as well as executives from pharmaceutical companies Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. When a reporter asked the president about Novo Nordisk’s acquisition of an obesity biotech company, Trump quipped to CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar, “Maybe you should give us a piece of the company like I’ve been asking for, give the United States a nice big chunk of the company.”  

Doustdar chuckled but ignored the president’s suggestion and went on to explain the acquisition. It’s unclear how serious Trump is about asking for a piece of the pharmaceutical giant, but his government has already taken stakes in several American companies, including U.S. Steel, Intel, Trilogy Metals, Lithium Americas, and MP Materials. 

If not for a patient on Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 medication physically collapsing during the press conference, Trump’s open desire for a piece of Novo Nordisk might have been the headline from the meeting, and not the supposed goal of lowering drug prices. The president has repeatedly claimed that he would lower drug prices (often by mathematically impossible amounts) and announced that the government would launch a website to sell prescription drugs directly to the American people.

If Trump decides to go ahead and pursue a piece of Novo Nordisk, he would be under more public pressure to successfully lower the cost of prescriptions. However, his ill-advised tariff policies feeding into his poor handling of the economy might undermine that goal. 

A federal judge called out Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino on Thursday for lying on the stand, before issuing a preliminary injunction against federal law enforcement using force against protesters and journalists.

During a hearing, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said that Bovino had plainly lied about deploying tear gas on protesters while leading an immigration operation in Chicago’s Little Village earlier this month.

The CBP chief had originally claimed that Bovino deployed tear gas canisters after he was hit in the head by a rock, but in his hourslong deposition, Bovino “admitted that he lied about whether a rock hit him before he deployed tear gas in Little Village,” Ellis said, according to Jon Seidal of the Chicago Sun Times.

Ellis said she’d reviewed video evidence that “disproved” his prior claim, as well as seen a mountain of evidence that federal agents in Chicago had used force against protesters, in violation of protesters’ First Amendment rights and contrary to the government’s claims. “I find the defendant’s evidence simply not credible,” Ellis said.

“Agents pushed, shoved, tackled protesters, pointed guns at them, threw tear gas and deployed smoke canisters. Everyone that agents detained [was] released by the FBI, and none of them are currently charged with assault,” she said, according to Seidal.

Ellis refuted the government’s claim that protesters weren’t practicing free speech because they’d intermingled with some individuals acting unlawfully. “But as I’ve previously stated,” Ellis said, “I don’t find defendants’ version of events credible.”

Ultimately, the judge moved forward with a preliminary injunction in line with her previous temporary restraining order, barring the use of force against protesters “unless such force is objectively necessary to stop an immediate threat.”

The injunction will require officers to issue two clear warnings before administering crowd-control measures, to place identifiers conspicuously on their person, and to wear a body camera. In line with her request from a previous hearing, the government’s lawyer confirmed that Bovino would now wear a body camera.