EXCLUSIVE: Whip Emmer Says Millions Going Hungry Will Be ‘Tragic Result’ Of Democrat Shutdown

House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer says the mounting impacts of the 30-day Democrat shutdown could force Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s hand on reopening the government.

More than 40 million Americans will not receive federal food aid beginning Nov. 1 due to a lapse in funding absent congressional action. Emmer, the third-ranking House Republican, has sharply criticized Minnesota Democrats for refusing to fund the government until their partisan policy demands are met. And he is now arguing that the party could be close to folding in the showdown as more Americans feel the impact in their daily lives.

“We have roughly 400,000 SNAP recipients in Minnesota. These are people that are most in need. What happens when they don’t have benefits?” Emmer told the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview Wednesday. “We can’t have this tragic result happen.”

“First 26, 27 days , Democrats have been able to get away with this nonsense, because most people in this country haven’t noticed, because they haven’t been impacted,” Emmer continued. “That’s changing this week.”

Though Democrats have thus far refused to blink in the shutdown standoff, Emmer believes the prospect of 1 in 8 Americans going hungry could hasten a resolution to the ongoing funding lapse. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees, some of whom live paycheck-to-paycheck, have also not received their salaries during the shutdown.

“The game changer should be putting low-income Americans and in particular — children — in danger of not having food,” Emmer told the DCNF. “That should be the game changer.”