Mayor Walsh Calls Trump's Letter To Food Aid Recipients 'Insulting'
BOSTON (CBS) - President Donald Trump is reportedly trying to take credit for a $4 billion federal food aid program and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh called it "insulting" and a "political ploy."
According to a Politico report, the Agriculture Department is requiring a letter from the president be put into millions of boxes of surplus food for needy families that are distributed as part of the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. In the letter, the president takes credit for the program.
Walsh was asked about the report Thursday.
"First of all, the President has done very little for food help here in Boston. The [Boston] Resiliency Fund has. 3.5 million meals have been given out," the mayor said. "The one area they've helped us on, and we've had to beg for it, is an extension to allow us to deliver food at home. The federal government, we've had to beg now twice to get that extension."
"To take credit for something like that is insulting. Lots of great people across America have made sure that our food banks and our food pantries and foods delivered. And quite honestly, the federal government has not been an assistance with that," said Walsh. "If we did not have the Resiliency Fund, where we've put almost about $20 million into food roughly, in securities here in Boston, we'd make it up somehow. But it wasn't the help of the federal government, I'll tell you that."
In the report, Politico stated the Trump administrated has denied that the inclusion of the letter was political.
