On Wednesday's New Day on CNN, during a discussion of how to pay for President Donald Trump's proposed border wall, co-host Alisyn Camerota seemed taken aback that Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King suggested shifting money from the food stamp program to help pay for the wall. Camerota fretted: "You want to take food from people that are s -- the people who are on the lowest rung in terms of the nation's safety net and their children -- in terms of food stamps, you're happy to take -- you're willing to take money from them to build the 1.6 or to give the 1.6 billion to the border wall?"
The segment began with a discussion of the latest on President Trump and Russia, and Camerota then asked about a tweet the President had sent out and wondered if it would be better if he just tweeted about policy. Rep. King then brought up border security:
It would be better to have more tweets driving policy, build the wall. And I'd like to say to America, a wall is not a fence, it's not a virtual, it's not a balloon in the air, it's not a drone. It's a wall. It's a concrete wall, and it's 2,000 miles of concrete wall.
Camerota responded by bringing up the cost of the border wall:
And it's $1.6 billion. I mean, that's what might be holding up, you know, the funding from the government. But are you comfortable, Congressman, with providing $1.6 billion of taxpayer money -- not from Mexico -- to build that wall.
After King recommended getting some of the money from both Planned Parenthood funding and from the food stamp program, the CNN host seemed to almost accuse him of wanting to take food from "starving" people -- but stopped short of actually pronouncing the word "starving" -- as she responded:
You want to take food from people that are -- the people who are on the lowest rung in terms of the nation's safety net and their children -- in terms of food stamps, you're happy to take -- you're willing to take money from them to build the 1.6 or to give the 1.6 billion to the border wall?
King then recalled that the food stamp program rolls have increased substantially in recent years.
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Wednesday, July 12, New Day on CNN:
7:42 a.m. ET
REP. STEVE KING (R-IA): It would be better to have more tweets driving policy, build the wall. And I'd like to say to America, a wall is not a fence, it's not a virtual, it's not a balloon in the air, it's not a drone. It's a wall. It's a concrete wall, and it's 2,000 miles of concrete wall.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: And it's $1.6 billion. I mean, that's what might be holding up, you know, the funding from the government. But are you comfortable, Congressman, with providing $1.6 billion of taxpayer money -- not from Mexico -- to build that wall.
KING: Absolutely yes, and more. And I throw another five billion on the pile, and I would find a half of a billion dollars of that right out of Planned Parenthood's budget. And the rest of it could come out of food stamps and the entitlements that are being spread out for people that haven't worked in three generations. We've got to put America back to work -- the administration will do it. And we've got to free them up so they can and support the right agenda for this country.
CAMEROTA: You want to take food from people that are s -- the people who are on the lowest rung in terms of the nation's safety net and their children -- in terms of food stamps, you're happy to take -- you're willing to take money from them to build the 1.6 or to give the 1.6 billion to the border wall?
KING: For a couple of reasons: One of them would be that, you know, we will create the kind of security that will bring about 10 million new jobs in America, just by enforcing immigration law. Second thing is, I wouldn't impose anything any more strict on anybody in America than what Michelle Obama did on her school lunch program. And so I would just say, "Let's limit to that. Anybody that wants to have food stamps up to the school lunch program, that's fine." And -- but we have seen this go from 19 million people on now SNAP program up to 47 million people on the SNAP program --
CAMEROTA: And you don't think all of them need it.
KING: Oh, I'm sure that all of them didn't need it. And so we need to set this down and ratchet it back down again. We built the programs because, to solve the problem of malnutrition in America, and now we have a problem of obesity. And when you match up the EBT card with what the scales say on some of the folks, I think it's worth looking at. Michelle Obama looked at it -- Republicans should be able to look at it, too.
