Sen. Steve Drazkowski: ‘I Have Yet to Meet a Person in Minnesota That is Hungry’

On March 15 2023, popular Reddit posts to r/WhitePeopleTwitter and r/nottheonion referenced comments from Sen. Steve Drazkowski (R-Minnesota) about legislation covering school lunches:

A post shared to Imgur on the same date (“Once you’re out of the womb, you’re on your own”) featured a screenshot of a tweet also shared to r/WhitePeopleTwitter:

The screenshot showed a March 14 2023 tweet by journalist Aaron Rupar (@atrupar), with video of the remarks. Rupar quoted up to “I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat.”

The actual commentary was slightly longer, and continued:

“Now, I should say that hunger is a relative term, Mr. President, you know? I had a cereal bar for breakfast. I guess I’m hungry now [thumbs up].

“Uh, that to some might be the — maybe that’s the definition [in] the bill, I don’t know — I didn’t see a definition of hunger in the bill, Mr. President.

“Um, but I think most reasonable people suggest hunger means you don’t have enough to eat in order to — to, uh, provide for metabolism and growth.”

Of the two Reddit posts, the one on r/nottheonion pointed to a March 14 2023 WRC-TV article, “State Lawmaker Opposed to Free School Lunch Proposal Says He’s Never Met a Hungry Minnesotan.” It identified the speaker in the clip as Drazkowski, and it also provided context and a date for the clip:

A Republican state senator in Minnesota said Tuesday [March 14 2023] he was voting against a bill to provide free breakfast and lunch for school students in part because he’d never encountered anyone in the state who was hungry.

[…]

The bill’s author, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Sen. Heather Gustafson, said it’s estimated that almost 275,000 students get free and reduced price school meals in the state [of Minnesota]. She said another 18% of students who likely would qualify haven’t submitted the necessary paperwork to do so.

A March 14 2023 tweet about comments from Minnesota State Sen. Steve Drazkowski (R) on the topics of hunger and a school lunch bill spread in screenshot form. The underlying tweet included footage of the remarks, and news outlets attributed the commentary to Drazkowski on March 14 2023.