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Ben Shapiro Slammed for Suggesting It’s Better to Send Kids to Child Services Than Give Them Free School Lunches
After a far-right Republican state lawmaker claimed there are no hungry people in Minnesota because he hasn’t met any, then voted against a free school lunch program, extremely conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, considered a right wing “thought leader,” weighed in, declaring Child Protective Services – not free school lunches – is the solution.
He’s getting highly criticized.
Appearing to be reading a question from a supporter, Shapiro said: “If government can protect kids from the sick radical left shouldn’t they also protect kids from hunger? Wouldn’t it make sense to strengthen food stamps and have school lunch be free since some kids are in school lunch debt?”
“Well,” Shapiro responded, “school lunches are not going to solve the problem of child hunger at any serious level. If there is a problem of children actually starving that is a child endangerment scenario to which CPS needs to be called.”
“The truth is it does not take that much money to feed a child. I know I have three of them,” he added.
Ben Shapiro: “School lunches are not going to solve the problem of child hunger at any serious level,” adding “It does not take that much money to feed a child” pic.twitter.com/9Z1x68cZoi
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 15, 2023
Shapiro wasn’t finished. He later went on to attack U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), who had called the right wing pundit’s remarks “dumb.”
“Let’s do math,” Congressman Lieu had offered. “Say a kid should eat 21 meals a week. School lunches provide 5 of those meals, solving nearly one-fourth of the problem. That’s pretty good. Oh and how about you miss one of your meals five days a week and see how you feel,” he added.
Shapiro responded by saying, “Dear Ted: if you think the key thing standing between kids and starvation is school lunch, that’s silly. If a child is on the verge of starvation, you must call CPS [Child Protective Services], not spend hundreds of millions on disproportionately unhealthy lunches, a huge percentage of which are discarded.”
Physician and professor Howard Forman told Shapiro, “There is pretty good data on this,” meaning the impact of free school lunches. “Why not accept that it’s a damn good program that helps many at low cost,” he asked.
Dr. Forman quoted from this study, writing: “…we find evidence that the receipt of free and reduced-price lunches improves the health outcomes of children.”
READ MORE: Donald Trump Just Called for Another Coup and Hardly Anyone Even Noticed
Forman also quoted from the study, adding: “we find that the program reduces food insecurity by at least 6%, poor health by at least 33%, and obesity by at least 21%.”
A Twitter account named “Fosters4Futures” which tweets about foster children, blasted Shapiro’s privilege:
“I understand your perspective is entirely rooted in having had the luxury of stability in your life, but I will assure you, when I was starving as a child, the food served for free to poverty level kids was the only food I ate, DURING SCHOOL MONTHS good luck on summer. And I’d steal school food to take home to my baby sister I’m so glad you had a regular source of food as a child that in your mind you think kids aren’t going hungry.”
Michael O’Brien, MD, a pediatrician, responded to the video of Shapiro and wrote: “The same pundits and activists targeting the LGBTQ community, drag queens, and books — in the name of ‘protecting kids’ — don’t give a damn about childhood hunger. 1 in 7 kids in South Carolina suffer from chronic hunger, and universal school lunch would change lives.”
Dr. O’Brien added: “If conservative activists actually gave a damn about kids, they wouldn’t be the ones remaining silent about child marriage, childhood hunger, child abuse (actual child abuse), under funding of public schools, closure of rural pediatric services… Do I need to continue???”
Twitter user Nancy Mathisen asks, “Does Shapiro know that it’s cheaper to feed children an adequate diet through school lunch programs and SNAP, than to send CPS to DO WHAT? Take them away from their families into the foster care system?”
Meg Conley, who writes about the “intersection of women, home, money, and care,” says: “Ben’s making one good point here. School lunches aren’t going to cut it. Let’s do school breakfast, school lunch AND a cash benefit for each child. No means testing for any of it.”
Health and science reporter Benjamin Ryan sums up Shapiro’s stance: “Ben Shapiro does not want the government to engage in one of the most impactful mitigation measures for the deleterious impacts of poverty: providing children with lunch.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
