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Sen. Lankford says claims that GOP ‘weaponizing hunger’ over SNAP is ‘painful spin’: Full interview

admin - Latest News - November 9, 2025
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In an exclusive interview with Meet the Press, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) pushed back against Democrats’ claims that Republicans are ‘weaponizing hunger’ by withholding SNAP funding, and called on the party to ‘just fix the problem’ by voting to reopen the government.



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Nov. 9, 2025, 9:00 AM ESTBy Juhi Doshi“Wicked: For Good” director Jon M. Chu has built his career on turning stories about outsiders into celebrations of belonging. But in an interview with “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, the filmmaker opened up about following his own yellow brick road: one marked by rejection and resilience.“My whole life, I’ve been trying to prove myself, that I can be here, that I can be in this business,” Chu told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “And I think I was always searching for that kind of validation. But through the process of making movies and doing it over — and I had a whole long career before ever doing ‘Wicked’ — I think I got killed many times.”“Wicked: For Good,” the second chapter in his adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, will hit theaters on Nov. 21. It is loosely based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel — a creative reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz.” The new film is produced by Universal Pictures, part of NBCUniversal.“Wicked,” which Chu also directed, is the most profitable Broadway film adaptation of all time and was nominated for 10 Oscars, of which it won two.Chu says he found that lesson of authenticity reflected in his film’s two main characters — Elphaba and Glinda — and in the actors who played them, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.Glinda, played by Grande, and Elphaba, played by Erivo, form an unlikely friendship, each challenging the other to view life from a new perspective and defy the expectations their world pins onto them.“I learned so much from Elphaba and Glinda and from Cynthia and Ariana,” he said. “I think I’ve gotten to let go of that idea of proving yourself.”When Chu was just 23, fresh out of the University of Southern California’s film school, he landed two movie deals. Both collapsed before production began.“There were days where I was like, ‘Am I a fool?’ … I would go into USC — they asked me to speak at USC, because this is the guy that just came out of college and got his deal … and I sit in the loading dock, and I’m watching all these kids excited about making a movie. And I feel like nothing. I feel like — and I just started to weep. It was probably the first time I cried in 20 years or something at that point. I was like, ‘These people think I’m a complete fake.’”Years later, after gaining experience and completing a variety of film projects such as “Step Up 2” and “Now You See Me 2,” Chu found a story that changed the trajectory of his career and became a watershed moment for Asian American representation on screen: “Crazy Rich Asians.”“‘Crazy Rich Asians’ was great, because it cracked the door open or showed a path for the other people who needed to invest money in this. I’m not sure if it was for us,” he said. “I think it was for everyone else to say, ‘Oh, these actors have value.’”“Crazy Rich Asians” was the first major Hollywood studio film to feature a majority-Asian cast in 25 years and was the highest-grossing romantic comedy of the decade. Chu says he sees his film as an “avenue” for other Asian American filmmakers to share aspects of their own experience: “Let’s own our stories and tell every version of our story we could.”However, Chu said that more representation “takes time.”“I think we have to be careful to expect too big of a change too quickly,” he said. “Of course we want that, but to change culture, it takes time. You cannot force people to do that.”Chu also says he remains deeply committed to the movie theater experience, despite the growth of streaming.“I think movies are one of our last analog spaces. It’s a space that we have to protect,” Chu said. “You have to make a choice to go in. You have to leave your phone … and then you have to just sit back in the dark and watch something for two hours through someone else’s perspective. That is maybe one of the last spaces we have to do that. It is a part of our culture.”And that, he says, is what “Wicked” is all about.“Even though it’s a fantasy, even though it’s a fairy tale, it’s our access into a human experience. What does it feel like when you believe so deeply, when you love so deeply, when you sacrifice everything? That we still have the capacity to do that,” Chu said. “It’s what my parents taught me. It’s what America has taught me.”Juhi DoshiJuhi Doshi is an associate producer with NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
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Nov. 22, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Aria BendixAt least four families have sued infant formula maker ByHeart saying their babies contracted botulism from contaminated formula, as the company faces ongoing scrutiny from federal investigators and a separate class action lawsuit filed last week.In the lawsuits, affected families described harrowing days or weeks in the hospital with their babies, who were placed on IVs and feeding tubes. Many said they had chosen ByHeart’s formula because it contained organic whole milk and minimal additives, making it seem like the healthiest option.The company said in a statement Wednesday that laboratory tests had identified Clostridium botulinum spores in samples of its formula. ByHeart told NBC News that it could not comment on pending litigation and that “the company is focused on the recall and root cause investigation at this time.”According to the Food and Drug Administration, 31 infants who consumed the formula have suspected or confirmed botulism. The cases span 15 states, and all have required hospitalization. No deaths have been reported.ByHeart recalls infant formula sold nationwide due to serious health risks02:03The bacteria that causes botulism can grow in foods that aren’t properly canned or preserved, and it produces a toxin that attacks the nerves. The resulting illness can cause difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis or death.ByHeart said on its website that it has not identified the root cause of the contamination but has shared its test results with the FDA.“We immediately notified the FDA of those findings, and we are working to investigate the facts, conduct ongoing testing to identify the source, and ensure this does not happen to families again,” it said.In an interview with NBC News, Hanna Everett said she started giving ByHeart formula to her daughter, Piper, at around 2 months old. By early this month, Piper was constipated and drooling excessively, and her left eye seemed droopy, Everett said. A friend sent her a link to the ByHeart recall.“Sure enough, the can she had just finished that day was the exact lot number that was affected,” said Everett, who lives in Richmond, Kentucky.Piper was admitted to a children’s hospital on Nov. 9, where she was diagnosed with botulism. Everett said the sight of doctors and nurses struggling to administer IVs and a feeding tube made her throw up.Hanna Everett’s daughter, Piper, in the hospital.Courtesy Hanna EverettTwo friends had to physically prop her up, she said, “because I was just bawling.”“They’re holding your child down that’s not even 4 months old technically at the time, and she’s just screaming bloody murder. And there’s nothing you can do,” Everett said.Piper was given a botulism antitoxin via an IV drip. The treatment isn’t readily stocked at hospitals, so it had to be flown in. Everett said Piper’s condition has improved; she was released from the hospital roughly a week ago.Hanna Everett with her daughter, Piper.Courtesy Hanna EverettBut Everett is still wracked with guilt.“It feels like I let her down when I know that’s not the case. It’s hard to tell yourself that as a mother, because you’re going to blame yourself,” she said.Everett and her husband, Michael, sued ByHeart last week, seeking damages for medical expenses, pain and suffering.“It makes me more angry and just sick to my stomach that it took them as long as it did to own up to this,” she said. “It’s almost like too little, too late.”Everett said she messaged ByHeart about the recall while Piper was in the hospital, and it offered to send her more formula cans.Darin Detwiler, a professor of food regulatory policy at Northeastern University, agreed that ByHeart should have taken comprehensive action more quickly.“They should have identified this on their own, and they should have been forthcoming immediately,” he said.After the FDA alerted ByHeart to the potential link between its formula and the botulism outbreak, the company initially recalled just two lots. The following day, ByHeart posted on its website that there was not enough evidence to link its product to the illnesses because a sample that had tested positive for botulism bacteria came from an opened can, which “can be contaminated in multiple ways.”In court filings, parents suing ByHeart have described states of terror.In the latest suit, filed on Wednesday, a Washington state couple said their daughter had chronic constipation, difficulty feeding and extreme fatigue while taking the formula. She was admitted to the emergency room at 2 months old, the filing says.The family left the hospital on Wednesday, according to the suit. The mother, Madison Wescott, said she doesn’t produce enough milk to satisfy her daughter’s needs without formula.“Knowing that I can’t fully feed my child, and I can’t trust formula companies has really taken a toll on our family,” Wescott said in the suit.In California, Anthony Barbera and Thalia Flores exclusively fed their son ByHeart formula after he was born, according to their lawsuit. By the time their son received the antitoxin for botulism at the hospital, he was no longer eating, connected to multiple IV lines and too weak to cry, their lawsuit says.Arizona parents Stephen and Yurany Dexter said in their lawsuit that their daughter stopped eating altogether in August, refusing the bottle of formula as soon as it touched her lips. She was transported by air ambulance to a children’s hospital. The couple said they feared she might die or never recover fully.Bill Marler, a lawyer representing the Dexters, Wescotts and Barbera and Flores, said ByHeart has “a lot to answer for.”“If there’s a product that should be safe, it should be infant formula,” he said.Before this, no botulism outbreaks had ever been linked to infant formula in the U.S. Formula makers aren’t required to regularly test for Clostridium botulinum, but they must follow sanitary control practices to prevent contamination and are subject to FDA inspections.Most of the major formula recalls in recent years — including the 2022 Abbott Nutrition recall, which contributed to a national formula shortage — were because of potential contamination with a different bacteria, Cronobacter sakazakii. ByHeart also recalled batches of its formula in December 2022 because of possible Cronobacter contamination.In 2023, the FDA sent a warning letter to ByHeart describing “significant violations” at its manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania. The FDA said that ByHeart attributed a batch of formula that tested positive for Cronobacter to a laboratory error, though the lab denied that that was the case. The agency also said there were two water leaks at the facility, and that ByHeart did not evaluate a potential link between the leaks and formula that later tested positive for Cronobacter.ByHeart’s website states that it “undertook action to address the issues and there are no open issues from that warning letter.” The Pennsylvania facility was not involved in the production of formula in the current recall, the company said.Abigail Snyder, an associate professor of microbial food safety at Cornell University, said an FDA warning letter like the one ByHeart got is “pretty unusual,” though there was increased regulatory activity around infant formula after the Abbott recall.“Fewer ingredients and whole milk is a different attribute than microbial safety, unfortunately,” she said.Aria BendixAria Bendix is the breaking health reporter for NBC News Digital.Kenzi Abou-Sabe contributed.
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