As Republican leaders appear to grow increasingly frustrated with the shutdown of the federal government, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson admitted on Thursday that he is refusing to allow legislation to fund food stamps because he wants to keep “pressure” on the Democratic Party.

The federal government has been shut down for 30 days, with little end in sight. Republicans continue to block Democratic attempts to reinstate funding for the Obamacare health insurance premium subsidies and programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Democrats refuse to vote to open the government without the Obamacare subsidies funding.

CNN’s Dana Bash told Speaker Johnson on Thursday afternoon that the “reality is that this has been a stalemate for 30 days, and it’s not just Democrats — you also have one of the most conservative Republican senators, Josh Hawley, who says, at least, please, move money around to feed people.”

READ MORE: Americans Turn Against Trump’s Crime Crackdowns: Report

Asked why he would not consider funding SNAP, Johnson replied: “Because if you deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government, Chuck Schumer and the radicals over there will continue to play games with people’s paychecks, their livelihoods.”

He added, “if you do just part of this, it will reduce the pressure for them to do all of it, to do their basic job, and that is reopen the government.”

“This is very real and very serious, and they can end it today,” Johnson insisted. “They can do it right now. All they have to do is, we just need five more Democrats in the Senate to help us reach the 60 vote threshold.”

“We don’t have enough Republicans to do the right thing on our own. We need them to do the right thing,” he said.

Critics say that Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune could go “nuclear” and drop the threshold from 60 votes to 50 votes to pass a clean continuing resolution and reopen the government.

Others criticized Johnson for using programs that aid low-income Americans as political leverage.

READ MORE: ‘How Authoritarians Rule’: National Security Experts Blast Trump’s New Nuclear ‘Fear Show’

U.S. Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA), responding to Johnson’s remarks, posted what he said is the law establishing the contingency fund that experts say should be used during the shutdown to fund SNAP.

“At least Johnson made clear that it is Republicans who want people to go hungry from their shutdown,” remarked Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“Mike Johnson now admitting that Republicans [are] using SNAP as leverage and to ‘pressure’ Democrats!” commented Matt Rein, director of influencer and creative partnerships at the DNC.

“This is the Speaker of the House making two things clear: They could feed poor children if they chose. They are choosing to starve poor children as a tactic,” wrote Bill Prady, co-creator of “The Big Bang Theory.”

“Mike Johnson f– up on CNN just now and admitted they’re defunding SNAP as leverage to get Democrats to fold on the shutdown. Letting 40 million Americans go hungry just to try to win a political fight is disturbing—I can’t believe he said it out loud,” remarked Democratic strategist Mike Nellis.

BASH: Even Josh Hawley says you should move money around to feed people. Why not consider that?

MIKE JOHNSON: Because if you deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government, Chuck Schumer and the radicals over there will continue to play games. If you do just part of… pic.twitter.com/Q0DjuOIsxo

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2025

READ MORE: Public Turns on GOP as Shutdown Fallout Deepens: Report

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Nine months into the second Donald Trump presidency, a majority of Americans strongly oppose his hard-line crime-crackdown policies, including sending military forces into U.S. cities. Americans also, for the second year in a row, see crime as less serious.

“Americans as a whole lean toward moderation in the use of law enforcement to combat crime,” and “now view national crime conditions more favorably than at any point in recent years,” according to two Gallup studies published Thursday.

President Trump ran on reducing crime during the 2024 campaign, and, despite tremendous opposition from the left, and rather than funding initiatives to address the causes of crime, he has deployed the National Guard to several Democratic-led cities, while battling in court for the right to do so. The President repeatedly, and increasingly, cites the Insurrection Act, claiming he has the right to invoke it and saying that the courts would do nothing to stop him.

READ MORE: ‘How Authoritarians Rule’: National Security Experts Blast Trump’s New Nuclear ‘Fear Show’

“The clearest indication of Americans’ approach to crime fighting comes from a question asking whether more government money and effort should go toward addressing some of the societal problems that may lead to crime or toward strengthening law enforcement,” Gallup reported. “Currently, 67% favor focusing on ‘addressing social and economic problems such as drug addiction, homelessness and mental health,’ while 29% believe more resources should be devoted to ‘strengthening law enforcement.'”

Gallup also reported that “Americans’ resistance to vigorous law enforcement is also evident in their opposition to deploying troops from either the National Guard or the U.S. military to control crime in U.S. cities.”

President Trump in recent days has threatened to send into U.S. cities not only the National Guard, but other branches of the Armed Forces.

“I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, I could, say, send anybody I wanted,” Trump said on Wednesday.

READ MORE: GOP Leader Erupts Over Democrat’s Effort to Fund SNAP — Then Blocks Bill

On Tuesday, Trump told reporters: “You know, people don’t care if we send in our military, if we send in our National Guard, if we send in Space Command, they don’t care who the hell it is.”

“Really, we could do as we want to do,” he insisted.

But according to Gallup, most Americans say the issue does matter to them.

Reporting that “most U.S. adults oppose militarized responses to urban crime,” Gallup found that 60% of Americans “are against sending military troops to cities to control crime,” and “56% oppose sending National Guard troops to U.S. cities.”

Gallup found a “broader public inclination toward moderate, preventive approaches to crime reduction over stringent sentencing and enforcement at a time when Americans are less concerned about the U.S. crime problem than they’ve been in recent years.”

And Gallup is not alone in its reporting.

Earlier this month, CNN reported that a CBS News-YouGov poll showed Americans “opposed Trump’s decision to deploy the Guard to US cities, 58%-42%. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed they disapproved of Trump’s use of the Guard and federal law enforcement to reduce crime, 55%-42%. And NPR-Ipsos polling in recent weeks showed fewer than 4 in 10 Americans supported Trump’s decisions to deploy the Guard to Washington, DC, and Memphis, Tennessee.”

READ MORE: Public Turns on GOP as Shutdown Fallout Deepens: Report

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A wide array of national security and intelligence community experts is strongly criticizing President Donald Trump’s new nuclear policy, announced on his social media website, which effectively orders the U.S. Department of Defense to halt a 33-year-old ban on nuclear weapons testing and begin the process again.

“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” Trump declared — wrongly, according to experts. “This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice!”

“Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years,” he continued, in the moments before meeting with China’s President Xi for the first time in six years. “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.”

READ MORE: Trump Suggests He Could Invoke the Insurrection Act — and ‘Courts Wouldn’t Get Involved’

The Steady State, an organization of over 300 former U.S. national security professionals across the intelligence, defense, diplomacy, and homeland security fields, slammed President Trump’s remarks.

“Nuclear testing isn’t something you greenlight in a post,” they wrote, “but turning national security into a fear show is how authoritarians rule.”

Other experts also slammed the president.

Tom Nichols, professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 25 years, is an expert on international security, nuclear weapons, and Russia.

At The Atlantic, Nichols wrote that Trump’s “reasoning is a bit confused: In the space of one short announcement, he managed to get a lot wrong, which is worrisome, because he’s the only person in America who has the authority to order the use of nuclear arms.”

Pointing to Trump’s post, Nichols explained, “Almost none of this is right.”

He wrote that Russia, not the U.S., has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. And while China is third, Nichols appeared skeptical that they could reach parity with the U.S. in five years. Doing so would require 1,000 new nuclear warheads a year, when they have only constructed 100 in the past two years, he wrote.

“Also, the United States did not create some shiny new arsenal during Trump’s first term. It is true that America is about to spend a gigantic amount of money—roughly $1 trillion—to modernize its strategic nuclear arsenal, but that plan has been in the works since the Obama administration.”

READ MORE: GOP Leader Erupts Over Democrat’s Effort to Fund SNAP — Then Blocks Bill

Professor of Political Science Michael McFaul, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, also condemned Trump’s order to restart testing of nuclear weapons.

“This makes absolutely no sense,” he wrote. “The only winner of renewed testing of nuclear weapons: China.”

The Washington Post’s lead global security analyst Josh Rogin, speaking on CNN overnight, said: “Trump’s brain probably thinks he’s acting tough, and then, by testing nuclear weapons, he’s showing American strength.”

He also noted that “the U.S. did sign a treaty to promise not to test nuclear weapons, and this would violate that, or at least abrogate that.”

Rogin added that “testing nuclear weapons has its own risks. Once we start testing, a lot of other people are gonna start testing.”

“But, you know, from Trump’s perspective, I’m sure, it means he thinks that, this is a real tough thing to do to really show the world that we’re not afraid to test our weapons, maybe we’re not afraid to use them.”

READ MORE: Public Turns on GOP as Shutdown Fallout Deepens: Report

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