Nick, we talk a lot about the citizenry. We the people. Constituents. And those are important

terms, but also sweeping terms that I think can, on occasion, paint flesh and blood humans as an abstract

idea or a philosophy. But whatever an American is, there is a body

representing that American. And that body requires food, water, nutrients for survival,

without which there would be no body politic. It's important to remember who participates in SNAP and what SNAP actually achieves.

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, serves nearly 42 million people every month.

That includes Samantha Bandy.

She's a working single mother with a medical condition, trying to balance a job while raising her children and struggling to make ends meet.

Because I'm like, I'm already struggling. I'm already stretching food.

The vast majority of SNAP participants are children with working parents and the elderly and the disabled.

The Trump administration announced it's ending the U.S. annual report on food insecurity and hunger

in America.

This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy. I'm Nick Capitje. And today we are talking about

the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka Snap.

It's a program that was in the news a lot during the latest and longest ever government shutdown.

And then the government opened back up, and lo and behold, we're not hearing so much about it anymore.

It may be out of the headlines, but Snap is still very much something to pay attention to.

So we're going to talk about what it is, what it's for, and what is happening to it.

My name is Sarah Blyche.

I'm a professor of public health policy at the Harvard Chan School of Public

Health. And I do research around food insecurity and health inequities really trying to use

available evidence to drive policy. I wanted to start off by understanding why we have a need

...