Many Americans are hurting as the Trump administration considers its plan to distribute emergency SNAP funds to recipients who are wondering if they’ll be able to put food on the table this weekend. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) joins Alex Witt to discuss Day 33 of the shutdown.
00:00Americans are feeling the pain on day 33 of the government shutdown as SNAP benefits sit in legal limbo.
00:07Millions of federal workers go without a paycheck.
00:09Families prepare to lose access to Head Start and air traffic controller shortages lead to flight delays.
00:16And the Trump administration is warning it could get worse.
00:20I think the real consequence is what kind of rolling delays do you have throughout the system, right?
00:26We've seen problems at L.A., in Dallas, in D.C., Boston, Atlanta.
00:32And so I think it's only going to get worse.
00:35Joining me now, Democratic Congressman from California, Jimmy Gomez.
00:39He sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, and we welcome you back to the broadcaster.
00:42So a lot of pain in America today.
00:46And Senator Ted Cruz predicts the shutdown will end Wednesday or Thursday.
00:50Do you see it happening by midweek?
00:52Well, first, I do think that the American people are suffering a lot of pain right now.
00:58But that's on top of the fact that Donald Trump's economy is really sluggish and only has, I would say, minuscule job growth.
01:07And people are actually being laid off, laid off, laid off, and they see their prices increase.
01:12So that's why we were fighting so hard as Democrats to make sure the ACA subsidies are extended, because that's going to be unbearable.
01:20Most people are not going to be able to afford that, and they're going to lose their health care.
01:23Now you have the expiration of the SNAP benefits and the Trump administration refusing to use that $6 billion.
01:29So all that pressure is, I believe, starting to lead to a point where hopefully the Senate negotiates a deal.
01:37And here's the thing.
01:37They can only reach a deal is that they say, okay, Donald Trump, you might be the president, but you're not the head of the Senate, and you're not the head of the House.
01:45And we're going to cut a deal that makes sense for not only for the American people as a whole, but for our individual states and our individual districts.
01:52If they don't do that, this thing can drag on for weeks more.
01:56So I think they need to think about their districts and their states and not Donald Trump.
02:00But so you don't think Donald Trump's the one who can come in and wrap this thing up, be the dealmaker that he likes to be?
02:07Donald Trump, he could if he wanted to, because the Republicans in the Senate and in the House just bend the knee and acquiesce everything in their power to Donald Trump.
02:16So he could do that.
02:17But since he's not, it's up to the members of the House and the Senate to cut a deal, to act as legislators, to compromise and to negotiate and to come up with something that puts the ball forward.
02:30But as long as they're just abiding by Donald Trump's keep the government shut down, create as much economic pain as possible for the American people so Democrats capitulate, as long as that's their negotiating tactics, this thing might never end.
02:44So we need leaders to emerge and to actually cut a deal.
02:47That's what being a legislator is about.
02:49They got elected on their own.
02:51They should start acting up like it and not just bend the knee to Donald Trump every time he calls or asks for something.
02:57Look, I don't have to tell you that Republicans have shown little interest in doing anything that Donald Trump doesn't tell them to do thus far.
03:04But that said, you have the biggest federal worker union, which is broken with Democrats and is calling for an end of the shutdown, putting its support now behind the Republican funding bill.
03:13Yeah, you still have some labor unions on your side.
03:16But what do you say to the workers who want to be able to afford health care, but they just can't go without a paycheck any longer?
03:23You know, I was actually a political rep for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a public sector union.
03:30And I understand what they deal with, the fact that they put in long hours, they work hard, try to raise a family and they need that paycheck.
03:39And I also understand that AFG has been decimated, decimated by the fact that Donald Trump has been bullying them, cutting the funding for a lot of their departments and then gave them a fork in the road offer.
03:51Either resign and take early retirement or you're going to be fired.
03:56250,000 to 300,000 have been let go.
03:59So I recognize that there is pain and they but they at the same time, I also recognize a lot of public sector unions know that Donald Trump and the Republicans have been hostile to the work that they have done year in and year out for not just this past year, but for for decades.
04:16So we're Democrats are fighting for them just as much as we're fighting for people throughout the country.
04:21And we're saying keep fighting, keep making your voice heard, but also they don't believe the fact that Donald Trump is for them.
04:30The facts speak otherwise, the facts speak otherwise.
04:33He tried to cut SNAP in the big billionaire bill by $200 billion, cutting SNAP, refuses to use the $6 billion in emergency funding, and then canceled 92 million pounds of food that was supposed to go to the food banks in the spring.
04:49This guy is not somebody who cares for working people.
04:52He sees them as a bargaining chip and as leverage in order to get his way in Congress and through the federal government.
04:58And yet the Washington Post poll out today finds nearly seven in 10 Americans who say the Democratic Party is out of touch with most Americans.
05:07You got more than six in 10 saying the same of Trump and Republicans.
05:10Will Democrats be credited for standing on principle or could they lose support because they are partly to blame for what people have experienced over the past 33 difficult days?
05:22I think what Democrats need to do is continue to fight for the working man and woman on the street that in this economy has been rigged for the billionaires and the largest corporations.
05:31We need to talk about affordability, the fact that average American pay 30 percent of their income towards rent or housing.
05:38Another 26 percent pay their income towards child care.
05:43And then now the fact that the health care subsidies are ending and it's going to spike the health care costs, well, that's what we're fighting against.
05:52We want to make sure that this place, the United States, is still a country where the next generation can do better than the last.
05:58And as long as we talk about affordability, taking on the establishment, taking on the billionaires, we're going to be able to win these fights.
06:06But you know what? In the end, it's about improving the life of people on the ground every single day and every single week, not just talking about it, not just putting up pieces of legislation, actually delivering.
06:16And that's how we're going to win back the minds and the hearts of the American people.
06:21So as the president embarks on these remodeling projects in the East Wing and the White House Lincoln bathroom amid this shutdown,
06:28the House Ways and Means is demanding more information about DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's purchase of two luxury private jets,
06:36which the committee says will cost taxpayers nearly $200 million.
06:40Can they make the case these are government necessities? And why does this feel so jarring?
06:45Well, I think it's in the contrast to the fact that the American people are struggling in Donald Trump's economy.
06:52The fact that it keeps passing tariff after tariff after tariff, raising the prices on Americans on everyday goods,
06:58from coffee to car seats to baby shoes, you name it, everything is going up.
07:03And then they want to spend that $200 million on two planes that nobody believes is necessary.
07:09Plus the extra $20 billion and another $20 billion, so a total of $40 billion for Argentina to bail them out.
07:17But he does nothing for the American farmer.
07:20And then he spends another $300 million on a ballroom and destroys the East Wing that has been historic.
07:27That's what people find insulting, is the fact that the Americans are struggling, but he doesn't give a damn.
07:33And he then holds a great Gatsby party at Mar-a-Lago during Halloween, just adding insult to injury.
07:41So this is an administration that is out of touch just as much as Marie Antoinette was out of touch when she said, let them eat cake.
07:48All right.
07:49California Congressman Jimmy Gomez, thank you so much.
08:03California Congressman Jimmy Gomez, thank you so much.
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