Trump and Stabenow got into a brief Twitter battle: Here's why

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., got into a short Twitter battle on Thursday, after the president accused her — by name — of stalling passage of this year's farm bill.

He did so, however, without offering any context or evidence for his remarks, which came at a time when negotiators from the U.S. House and Senate — both of which are under majority control of the Republican Party — are meeting to resolve differences in the versions of the bill passed by the two chambers. 

In his post, Trump said Stabenow — who is the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee and its former chairwoman — and other Democrats are "totally against approving" the 2018 farm bill and are "fighting tooth and nail to not allow our Great Farmers to get what they so richly deserve." 

But he also gave a clue as to what he was really talking about when he added in the post, "Work requirements are an imperative and the Dems are a NO. Not good!"

That's not exactly correct, however: While the House-passed version of the legislation included a provision to expand work and work-related requirements for able-bodied adults — including those with dependents — to continue receiving food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Senate version did not include that provision. In fact, some 20 Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting just such a provision — at least in part understanding that it could doom the bill.

Read more:

Her gut-wrenching TV ad takes shot at opponent

Why new dog-eating ban doesn't affect Michigan

Stabenow responded to Trump's tweet by noting that the Senate farm bill got support from Republicans and Democrats alike, saying, "In case you missed it, the Senate passed a bipartisan #FarmBill that got 86 votes — the most ever. I’m not letting politics distract me from working across the aisle to finalize a good bill that will deliver certainty for farmers and families in Michigan and across the country."

SNAP already has work requirements in place for able-bodied adults who do not have any dependents; the House wants to change that to include any of those adults with children over the age of 6.

At the time of the passage this summer, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the committee didn't get enough credit for what that chamber's version of the bill did to root out fraud in SNAP and that he was satisfied that he and Stabenow — whom he also mentioned by name — had worked to "produce a good, bipartisan farm bill."

Meanwhile, Roberts and others have said that the farm bill — which is reauthorized every five years or so and includes provisions on crop insurance, nutrition programs, trade assistance and more — was needed by the Sept. 30 expiration of the previous bill in order to give farmers more certainty in a time when foreign tariffs are hurting them. 

Some of those tariffs have been put in place as retaliatory measures over the last year as Trump has ratcheted up pressure on other countries, including China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union nations, over steel, aluminum and other imports.

Stabenow's Republican opponent in this year's election, John James, also got into the act Thursday after the president's tweet, posting his own making the same accusation, though he also did not explain why she was considered somehow more obstructionist than Republican senators who supported the same bill that she did. 

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.