Jake Tapper presses Chris Murphy on letting Americans go hungry over Obamacare subsidies

WASHINGTON, DC: CNN host Jack Tapper confronted Democratic Senator Chris Murphy with a sharp question about whether his party was willing to let food assistance run out amid the ongoing government shutdown to secure an extension of Obamacare subsidies. The exchange came after Democrats blocked a bipartisan funding bill that excluded the healthcare provision, deepening the budget standoff. 

Jake Tapper grills Chris Murphy on Obamacare funding standoff

“Funding for food stamps is expected to run out at the end of this week. This is happening because Democrats have not agreed to vote to fund the government without Republicans making concessions to seriously change healthcare policy.

So is this a trade-off you’re willing to make and continue to make, letting some Americans go hungry until these Obamacare subsidies get extended?” Tapper asked Murphy during his show ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday, October 26.

Chris Murphy blames Republicans for government shutdown

Dodging the question, Murphy accused Republicans of stonewalling bipartisan talks. “We’re shut down right now because Republicans are refusing to even talk to Democrats about a bipartisan budget bill,” he said.

“As you know, the reason we didn’t shut down for four years when Joe Biden was president was because Democrats negotiated with Republicans, and every single one of those funding bills included both Democratic and Republican priorities.

The government is shut down because Republicans have done something unprecedented — they’ve refused to talk to Democrats about a bipartisan budget.”

Murphy defended his party’s position, saying, “One of our priorities is pretty simple: making sure premiums don’t go up by 75% for 22 million families this fall. If they sat down to negotiate, we could probably come up with something quickly.”

He then pointed to the Trump administration’s recent $20 billion aid package to Argentina as proof that the government still had financial flexibility.

“The president just announced $20 billion going to bail out the Argentinian economy. For $20 billion, we could open the government back up; that’s enough money to ease the pressure from these premium increases,” Murphy added.

“We could get this deal done in a day if the president was in DC rather than overseas. We could open up the government on Tuesday or Wednesday, and there wouldn’t be any crisis in food.”

Shutdown threatens food aid for millions of Americans

Without congressional action, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food aid to over 40 million Americans, will lose funding on November 1.

More than two dozen states have warned that they will stop distributing benefits if the shutdown continues.

Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked Republican attempts to end the shutdown, with Senator Chuck Schumer leading the filibusters. They have made it clear that they will not support any funding bill that excludes an extension of Obamacare subsidies and other Democratic priorities.