It's the Brian Lairn on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. And you just heard our opening,

usual theme, but one piece of music isn't sufficient to start the show today. We also need to

add this one and see if you can figure out why. A little party never killed nobody.

Yeah, that's Fergie with A Little Party Never Killed nobody from the 2013 movie version of the Great Gatsby.

You know this?

And as you may have heard in the news, as the Trump administration was ordering snap benefits to expire at midnight, Friday night, in the government shutdown, at the end of Halloween,

the president was having a great Gatsby-themed,

1920s-themed Halloween party at the White House with the theme song that you heard there

as the party's theme, A Little Party Never Killed Nobody.

Some people might ironically celebrate the concentration of wealth in the so-called gilded age just before the Depression in the 1920s.

In this case, maybe not so ironic.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy posted,

The way he rubs his inhumanity in Americans' face never ceases to stun me.

He said this on X.

He's illegally refusing to pay food stamp benefits

while he throws a ridiculously over-the-top Gatsby party

for his right-wing millionaire and corporate friends,

unquote, the take from Chris Murphy.

Our first guest this week also posted about the suspension of SNAP benefits,

and what looks like a cruel

threat that came with it to grocery stores. We'll explain what that is. Our guest is Catherine

Rampel, who recently left her perch as a Washington Post columnist as part of the Exodus there

...