Trump Administration Loves Finding New Ways to Starve Americans 

The GOP has circled back to using its dirtiest trick of 2025—trying to starve Americans to get what it wants.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was whining about the “fraud” plaguing the USDA and how several Democrat-led states have refused to provide the federal government with SNAP recipient data—information that includes names, immigration statuses, and social security numbers—when she more or less suggested, Why not just starve the information out?

Rollins: Joe Biden increased food stamp program funding by 40%. Now… we continue to roll that back… Just gratitude and joy for this work. So, so grateful to you. pic.twitter.com/FSXcYYczCl

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 2, 2025

“Twenty-nine states said yes, not surprisingly, the red states, and that’s where all that data, that fraud, comes from,” Rollins said, referring to the new requirement that was first announced in June. “But 21 states including California, New York, and Minnesota—blue states—continue to say no. So as of next week, we have begun and we will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply.” Rollins said her department requested the data specifically to “root out…fraud.” Nearly 42 million people in the U.S. receive food assistance through SNAP. 

“Genuine question: Why is the Trump Administration so hellbent on people going hungry?” New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote on Twitter.

Before 2025, the USDA never required states to provide it with any SNAP recipient data, and in November, 21 states and Washington, D.C. sued the administration to block the data requirement, calling the guidance “arbitrary and capricious.”

Additionally, in October, a federal judge also issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration from enforcing the new rule. (The department has a few weeks left to appeal the decision, and a judge has already denied a request to pause the injunction.) And given that both personal information has traveled between government agencies and ended up in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security, and that the original USDA order lists an intent to prevent “illegal aliens” from benefiting from SNAP, there’s cause for alarm. 

Republicans have lately made defunding SNAP something of a hobby. During the longest-ever government shutdown in U.S. history, the administration abruptly changed the rules to keep states from using emergency funds after federal SNAP money ran out—because why stop at a shutdown when you can also yank food assistance from millions? Trump then threw a swanky party at Mar-a-Lago as millions faced losing their benefits. And the “One, Big, Beautiful” (Spite-Powered) bill passed in July delivered the largest-ever cuts to the food stamp program.

“The Trump Administration is once again playing politics with the ability of working parents with children, seniors and people with disabilities to get food,” Gov. Maura Healy (D-Mass.) said in a statement following Rollins’ announcement. “Trump needs to order Secretary Rollins to release SNAP funding immediately and prevent more Americans from going hungry.”

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