Adam Schiff says he is shocked by 'cruelty' motivating SNAP policy

Sen. Adam Schiff said Sunday that "cruelty" seems to be motivating the Trump administration's policies on food aid for needy Americans.

Speaking to host George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," the California Democrat said: "One thing that is just so shocking to me, George, in the midst of all of this, they're appealing to the Supreme Court for the right to cut off food from people."

He added: "Who does that? Who works so hard? Who goes all the way through the court system to cut food from people who need it right now? But that's where they're coming from. The cruelty is part of the policy."

President Donald Trump appealed last week to the Supreme Court to block a lower court's order that required his administration to provide full funding for SNAP benefits amid the government shutdown.

After Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson granted the Trump administration’s request for temporary relief Friday night, the Department of Agriculture told states not to pay full food stamp benefits for the month of November.

In the ABC interview, Schiff said that Senate Democrats last week offered a compromise to end the shutdown by approving a one-year extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Senate Majority Leader John Thune called the proposal "a nonstarter" and said: "There is no way. The Obamacare extension is the negotiation."

Schiff scoffed.

"We said: Let's extend existing law for a year, give us more time to work on this, and re-open the government," he told Stephanopoulos.

He added: "I think this is going to go on because Senate Republicans aren't going to do anything without the president's agreement and approval. And House Republicans are just, you know, content to stay away while people suffer."

Most Senate Democrats have declined to support what is being called a "clean" continuing resolution, a budget measure without additions or subtractions, to reopen the government. Stephanopoulos asked Schiff why Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had supported one earlier this year but was rejecting one now.

"Well, we have a health care crisis that has intensified since then, and you've got people on the precipice right now," Schiff said.

Schiff also said Democrats are concerned that the Trump administration will ultimately accept the inclusion or retention of some Democratic priorities but then not spend that money.

"They're telling us they're going to cheat on an agreement," he said. "And we need, in whatever agreement we reach, to have some really solid guarantees in that legislation that they simply can't go and renege after it's done."