What did Donald Trump do today?

He responded to soaring grocery prices by making it harder for the poorest Americans to afford groceries at all.

Today, Trump proposed a change to federal food assistance program that would eliminate benefits for 6.3 million Americans. It would also eliminate free school lunches for about 1.8 million children in addition to the SNAP benefits (sometimes referred to as food stamps) that their parents are currently eligible to receive in grocery assistance. 

The federal poverty level for a single parent raising a child is a yearly income of $21,640. That means that if that parent worked a full-time 40-hour-a-week job at $14 an hour, they would exceed the new flat 130% threshold and not qualify for SNAP benefits under Trump's proposal—not even if they lived in cities or isolated rural areas with unusually high costs of living.

According to the Trump administration's justification for the cuts, such a family is not "truly needy."

Trump's decision comes on the same day that new inflation data was released. The consumer price index—a measure of the goods and services a typical household needs—was up sharply in October, rising by 0.4%. That was even higher than expected, and equivalent to 5% annual inflation. 

In an interview on 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday, Trump—who does not pay for his own food, housing, utilities, transportation, or medical care—was asked about his own net worth, which has ballooned as he has rushed to monetize the presidency since returning to office.

ROSS DOUTHAT: There's a Forbes story that said that your net worth, maybe it's changed with the stock market recently, but your net worth went up by $3 billion since you—

TRUMP: Well, so did everyone.

DOUTHAT: Everyone's? My net worth did not go up by $3 billion, for the record.

TRUMP: Well, you should've had stock.

DOUTHAT: I— I should've—

TRUMP: You should've had stock.

Why does this matter?

• Presidents should be able to understand that people need money to buy food, even if they've never once had to think about that kind of thing themselves.