This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Friday, December 5th.

I'm David First, WNYC's weekend edition host, filling in for Brian today.

Happy Friday, everybody.

We start with a roundup of public health policy issues in the news and new threats to cut funding for the SNAP Food Assistance Program.

We're also going to get to the news surrounding the RFK Jr. agenda for the childhood vaccine schedule.

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which was handpicked by Health and Human Services

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been set to vote on a new schedule for the hepatitis B vaccine.

The vote was again delayed yesterday. It is now scheduled for today.

We will have the latest. Beyond that, Senate Democrats are looking to force a vote next week to

extend expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. So there was a lot to cover. Here with a roundup

of the latest, we're joined by two

reporters who have extensively covered these issues. Julie Rovner, Chief Washington correspondent

for KFF Health News and host of the What the Health podcast, and also Jude Joffie Block, power, politics

and influence reporter for NPR. Welcome, both of you. Thanks for

having. Thanks so much. Yeah. So let's start with SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance

Program. This is federally funded. It's run at the state level. Nearly three million New Yorkers rely on SNAP for help with

buying groceries. Many of them are still dealing with the impact of the two-week pause in food

assistance during the government shutdown. The Trump administration is promising big changes to the

program claiming there is massive fraud in the system without providing

evidence to back up those claims.

They're also threatening to withhold SNAP funds from states unless they turn data over

...