Writing: Feeding Cemeri Cemeri Claire Babineaux-fontenot “face the nation with Margaret Brennan,” November 30, 2025
The following is the text of the interview with feeding Ceme CEO Claire Babineaux-fontenot placed “in front of the nation with Margaret Brennan” on November 30, 2025.
Nancy Threads: We now turn to the fight against hunger in the United States. According to Government data, 47.4 million people live in what the Ministry of Agriculture calls the leader of food insecurity in 2023. This is when the house should not get enough food to feed all its members. One of the largest groups working to fight food insecurity feeds America, and we’re joined now by CEO Claire Babineaux-fontenot, who is in Charleston, South Carolina this morning. Claire, thank you so much for having us, and thank you.
Claire Babineaux-fontenot: Thanks for having me back.
Nancy Wires: Sure. So during the shutdown, we saw these long lines at the food banks. The closure has been in effect for several weeks. Snap’s profits will come out again, but even before the shutdown, food insecurity was at its highest level in nearly a decade. So, what is the situation now as you see it in food banks across the country as we head into the holidays?
Babineaux-fontenot: Yes. So I’m really glad you made that point. I- I think your viewers would be surprised to learn that the levels of unsafe practices before the shutdown were higher than at any point during the pandemic, for example. We continue to see high demand. I think part of the reason is because the largest group of people who turn to a meaningless diet plan, they are people who are not even suitable for healthy diet plans so this is an area that we should always focus on. We know the types of things that work. We need to do those things so that we can really deal with what is happening with hunger and poverty in the country,
Nancy Threads: What do you think is contributing to the increase in hunger with this group of people who, as you say, don’t qualify for benefits, but show an increased need for food?
Babineaux-fontenot: Yes, I think that’s how the system is broken. Right now, there are many people, if you can imagine, in this country who cannot get money from work, because we have a system that does not take away the power of the people of this country. We have stairs with large rungs missing, if you will, so we can do something about that. We can have a sliding scale, for example, that allows people to get out of poverty. By doing that, because food insecurity is actually a symptom of poverty, they will get away with that. As a nation, we should all want people to be able to feed themselves. We should all want them to be able to find work they can feel proud of and support their families. We have the power to do all those things, it’s going to take us working together, to be honest about what’s broken, and to really happen to fix those things.
Nancy’s Threads: What are the top challenges organizations in your organization are facing this holiday season as they try to feed the hungry? Is food there for people who need it?
Babineaux-Fontenot: Yes, unfortunately, the lines are longer than the available PATH, and one of the organisms will see that these people will see the same dreams, and all your viewers have their own, they feel that they have turned to the food system. It takes a lot of courage and commitment and family commitment to be able to do that, then for them to rise up despite all those obstacles, and to be able to give them deep respect for the people who are facing this. I have been an experienced person with hunger before. I know many people who have, many people who are still going, many of them are my heroes. And then another set of heroes that I have are the people who work in this fight at the Feed America Network, who show shoulder to shoulder with people who are facing their hunger. So we need to put people who are facing hunger so that they can take care of themselves, and we need to put food banks so that they can give them the support they need at this moment, until they get there.
Nancy Wires: As you know, there are about two million Americans who will be affected by the SNAP program that was passed earlier this year by Congress. They will not receive the benefits of rapture. What are the economic consequences of that? And in about 30 seconds, what can your organizations do with it?
Babineaux-fontenot: According to the conmessional budget office, we are probably looking at about six billion lunches per year to be created. So the kinds of things we have to do about it: We have to deal with deception where it exists. We must encourage people to be able to get the help they need and get out of poverty. We have to deal with error rates, but we have to do all these things systematically, and we have to do them in a BIPartisan way. This should be the kind of thing that this country can come together, so that we can hold hands shoulder to shoulder, because when people get hungry and succeed, we all do it.
Nancy cables: Claire Banjineaux-fontenot, we should leave it there. We have a lot. But thank you very much, Claire Babineaux-fontenot from feeding America. Thank you very much.
