On his radio program yesterday, Sean Hannity said he doesn’t believe any Americans go to bed hungry. He suggested that families can simply survive off of rice and beans:
“I don't believe people are going to bed hungry. ... For, instance I have friends of mine who eat rice and beans all the time. Beans protein, rice. Inexpensive. You can make a big pot of this for a week for negligible amounts of money and you can feed your whole family.Look, you should have vegetables and fruit in there as well, but if you need to survive you can survive off it. It's not ideal but you could get some cheap meat and throw in there as well for protein. There are ways to live really, really cheaply.”
Hannity claimed just because there are 47 million Americans in poverty it does not mean they are going to bed hungry.
"Most of the people have refrigerators and, freezers, and air conditioning, and TVs and...DVDs," he added. He thinks living conditions for the poorest Americans are “decent” although not “ideal.”
According to data released by the U.S. census, more than 1 in 5 children (15.75 million) lived below the poverty line in 2010. In Hannity's mind, none of these children has ever gone to bed hungry. They are presumably just eating rice and beans and watching DVDs.
On his show yesterday, Hannity, who reportedly made over $10 million dollars last year, said, “I never [gone] to bed hungry in my life — ever.”
Hannity has a history of downplaying the plight of the American poor.
It was just a few months ago on his radio show he made the case that “poor in America is not like poor around the rest of the world.” He explained this line of thinking to his guest and fellow multi-millionaire Donald Trump.
Ed will discuss this story tonight on The Ed Show at 8pET on msnbc with Vicki B. Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America, the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity, which provides food to Americans in need through a network of more than 200 food banks.