Sacramento, California - California Governor Gavin Newsom slammed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins for "accidentally" telling the truth about the Trump administration's plan for food stamps.

"Brooke Rollins accidentally told the truth," Newsom's press office wrote in a post on X.

"The Trump admin saw the shutdown as a way to take away SNAP benefits. Sick!"

His post referred to comments that Rollins made to News Nation on Wednesday, in which she explained why President Donald Trump's administration is insisting that people reapply for food stamps.

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More than 40 million Americans were at risk of losing access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits system during the government shutdown.

This loss of access would have threatened to send millions of Americans into severe food insecurity.

Now that the government has reopened, the Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, has asked many recipients to reapply for the benefits under the guise of rooting out fraud.

"I think what's really important, [is] that we have for the first time in history been collecting the data," Rollins said, before claiming that 186,000 dead people had been accessing SNAP benefits.

"Under the last administration, SNAP benefits increased 40%, so clearly there's a right-sizing that needs to happen," she said, suggesting that funding cuts may be coming to the critical program.

She announced that massive "structural" changes are coming to SNAP and said that details will be released the week after Thanksgiving.

"I think the unintended consequence of the Democrat shutdown is now the spotlight has been shined on, and we have to make sure for those that really need this benefit that we are able to make sure it's going to the right people," Rollins said.