Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer got excited on Wednesday afternoon, while answering questions about negotiations with Republicans to end the partial government shutdown and fund the food stamp program.

REPORTER: You said there are legislative solutions, that the administration should use the contingency fund. But come the weekend, if SNAP runs out, tens of millions of Americans will go hungry. Have you gotten a sense from your Democratic colleagues that the pain of that, and other aspects of the shutdown might outweigh- SENATOR SCHUMER: My Democratic colleagues are united in the fact that the Trump administration can do this – not this weekend, but tomorrow, or today, right away. Every Democrat is a sponsor of Senator Lujan’s bill, and that is how we feel. Yes. REPORTER: On the dispute of whether the USDA can use the funds- SENATOR SCHUMER: Excuse me. It is not a dispute. It is a fact they can use it. And the Republicans say it. REPORTER: There are only five or six billion dollars, and SNAP costs eight billion monthly to administer. If antything, it wil only last a few weeks? SENATOR SCHUMER: It does not cost five or six billion to administer. There is enough money to start feeding people right away. $ 6 billion is a lot of money, and they are using it for other things – twenty billion for Argentina and hundreds of millions for Kristi Noem’s plane. REPORTER: What happens if it runs out – if it only lasts two or three weeks? SENATOR SCHUMER: The bottom line is they can fund it, just as in 2019 and other shutdowns, for a long period of time. SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR: They also have a contingency fund of six billion, which gets you nearly a month, three weeks. And if that runs out, then they can pass Senator Lujan’s or Senator Hawley’s bill, both of which we support. We know that there will be sixty votes for that. Why aren’t they calling it up? They’re not calling it up because the House is not here to pass it. The House would have to come here, and they would probably have to vote on the Epstein files. But they are choosing to let kids go hungry instead of having to vote on the Epstein files. There is no doubt about it. They have been out for six weeks on vacation. SENATOR SCHUMER: If they have all of this money for Argentina, and all this money for other things, they have enough money to keep funding SNAP – and they know it. I just want to say what Lujan said: Johnson just lies. He lied about on immigration, on the undocumented. He is lying about this. He just outright lies, plain and simple. It is not illegal, and his own president has done it. REPORTER: Is there any conversation or any negotiation happening whatsoever behind the scenes? SENATOR SCHUMER: There are occasional talks between Democrats and Republicans on this issue. But our Republican colleagues do not seem to be offering anything different than what their leadership has had so far. We hope that will change. Yes. REPORTER: I understand what you’re saying about Republicans and SNAP. Are you saying that Democrats have no responsibility? SENATOR SCHUMER: We are saying that the Republicans can fund it now, and they are using these people as hostages – plain and simple. That is the answer. The answer is that they can fund it right now. Right now. By the way, we do not want to pit health care and food. We think you can have both. Yes. REPORTER: On SNAP and the ACA – Leader Thune said that he had spoken to President Trump and that he would be willing to talk next week about ACA subsidies, after the government opens first. SENATOR SCHUMER: They always say, Do it later. Do it later. Later, to quote Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, means never. They voted three times against it. This idea of Do it later – been there and done that. We have to do it now. The window opens.

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