Nearly two million people in Illinois are set to lose food assistance this weekend as the federal government shutdown wears on.
Governor J.B. Pritzker says the state is doing what it can to help ... even as he claims the Trump Administration is making that especially difficult.
The governor signed an executive order sending $20 million in assistance to food banks and other resources to help people dealing with food insecurity ... ahead of the expected cutoff of the federal program known as SNAP.
He also told reporters in Springfield Thursday that the White House appears to be deliberately making it difficult to help recipients.
"They do have emergency funds at the ... U-S Department of Agriculture and they're choosing not to use it," said the prominent Democrat and critic of the Trump Administration, saying that the government also plans to shut down SNAP processing machines "so that they can't be used ... so even if we were to put money into SNAP accounts, they couldn't be accessed by someone who has a SNAP card."
He called the move "insidious."
Republicans including U-S Senate candidate Don Tracy accused Democrats of trying to use the shutdown as leverage ... and pointed to new survey results they claim shows Democrats are losing support over it.