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Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"! I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us! We're back!

And it has been a busy week!

Boeing's Starliner capsule returned home from space,

without its astronauts on board.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax charges.

And Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro, tried to stem protests

over what's widely seen as July's stolen election,

with this desperate announcement.

This year, in all of your honor as a thank you to all of you,

I'm declaring that Christmas is moving up to October 1st.

Christmas starts October 1st for everyone.

Come on! You can't just throw up Christmas decorations in October

to distract from your shitty politics. You're not Hobby Lobby.

Also, Christmas doesn't start when a president says it does.

As we all know, Christmas starts

when Mariah Carey pops out of her 11-month coma.

Wait for her signal.

But we're gonna move on to the U.S. election,

which is entering its final months.

Several states have been running contests to pick

their "I voted" stickers, and just this week,

Michigan unveiled nine winners, featuring some excellent choices.

Congratulations to Olivia from Holly High School.

She designed this colorful sticker that says, "Yay! I voted."

And we also want to show you this one. This one is crazy.

I love it, Jane from Brownell Middle School.

It's an American flag, and appears to be a wolf ripping off his shirt.

Just turnt up from voting.

Yes. Everything about that is perfect.

The line work, the kinetic energy of the shirt being ripped off,

the wolf's head thrown back in patriotic ecstasy

at the concept of democracy.

I know this is not the point,

but I would commit voter fraud to get multiples of that sticker.

And it's not just Michigan. Kentucky's winner

was this lovely drawing of a horse, but my favorite there

was actually this runner-up entry.

Third grader Cash Litzler won over the internet's humor

with his drawing that was less conventional than others.

But I'll let him explain the inspiration.

I didn't know what to draw.

So, I watched the Spider-Man movies like three days before it,

and I was just drawing.

And then Mom told me about the contest, and I wanted to enter it.

Mom tells me Cash's thinking was, "If Lizard Man can vote, you can too."

"If Lizard Man can vote, you can too."

That's actually a very powerful message.

'Cause at the end of the day,

lizard men in disguise don't secretly run the government,

they get one vote, just like you and me.

As for the presidential candidates, they're scheduled to debate

next Tuesday, and Trump continues to battle the fact

that he and JD Vance have been called weird,

a label that seems to genuinely bother him.

JD is not weird. He's a solid rock.

I happen to be a very solid rock.

We're other things, perhaps. But we're not weird.

But that is the weirdest possible way to address that accusation.

"He's a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock."

What are you talking about?

I'm not sure I'd describe any part of JD Vance as "rock solid".

Unless, of course, he was in a West Elm showroom.

Though Trump is half right there! He and Vance are lots of things:

they're misogynists, narcissists, men who cum dead silent,

plausible "Masked Singer" contestants.

But they are also deeply weird.

And each day seems to bring new evidence of Vance failing

to connect with ordinary Americans, from being booed by firefighters,

whom he referred to as "haters",

to the viral clip of him utterly failing to make small talk

in a donut shop, with the low being this.

- We're gonna do two dozen. - Okay.

Just a random assortment of stuff here.

How long have you worked here?

I've been here since the beginning of July.

- Of this year. - Okay. Good. How about you, sir?

Almost two years.

- Okay. Good. - You want everything?

Just everything, yeah. A lot of glazed here. Some sprinkle stuff.

Some of these cinnamon rolls. Just whatever makes sense.

How are you that bad at basic human interactions?

"Whatever makes sense?" If you don't know what donuts to order,

just say, "Surprise me!" It's fun.

It's annoying to every server who's ever lived,

but it's at least a human response. But "whatever makes sense"?

My freaky little bitch, you're in a donut shop.

Nothing makes sense there. Some have sprinkles, some are fritters,

some contain a jelly found in no other place on Earth.

You're eating cake for breakfast, it's total chaos,

but picking out a donut is something most of us figured out by age three.

And Trump clearly should've known about Vance's lack of charm,

because it's been on display for all to see,

from his many podcast appearances where he's said things like

women who don't have kids are choosing a "path to misery",

to the awkward moments like when he showed up to a picket line last year

and tried to turn a fist bump into a handshake,

and then offered his own fist bump and got left hanging.

That is just brutal to watch!

Just this week, a clip resurfaced of him during his Senate campaign

two years ago, flop-sweating through some shitty jokes

about Kamala Harris.

While we're on the topic of Joe Biden,

if he did not make it all the way through his four years,

he is likely to be replaced by Kamala Harris,

who I've heard called Cacklela Harris,

'cause she has this weird cackle, right?

I heard a joke about Kamala that I thought was pretty funny recently,

that Bill Clinton was watching her on TV and Bill thought,

"She's just so condescending. She's mean-spirited."

"She's kind of nasty. Maybe I should leave my wife and marry her instead."

Look, JD, comedian to comedian, never make the setup,

"I heard a joke that I thought was pretty funny recently,"

but if you do, make sure that what you say next is funny,

and also an actual joke.

But Trump's supporters will insist this contest is about policy,

not personality. But on policy, they're even more toxic and weird.

Just this week, both men addressed the high cost of childcare.

Vance suggested that "maybe grandma or grandpa wants to help out more",

and Trump got a very specific question about it at an economic forum.

And I'm gonna play his full two-minute answer here.

Because it is genuinely remarkable how long he takes to say so little.

Can you commit to prioritizing legislation

to make childcare affordable, and if so,

what specific piece of legislation would you advance?

Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down

And I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio,

and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue.

It's a very important issue.

But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about,

that, because, look, childcare is, childcare is.

There's something, you have to have it.

In this country, you have to have it.

But when you talk about those numbers compared

to the kind of numbers that I'm talking about by taxing foreign nations

at levels that they're not used to, but they'll get used to it very quickly,

and it's not gonna stop them from doing business with us,

but they'll have a very substantial tax

when they send product into our country.

Those numbers are so much bigger

than any numbers that we're talking about, including childcare,

that it's going to take care. We're gonna have

I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time,

coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste

and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country,

because I have to stay with childcare.

I want to stay with childcare,

but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers

that I'm talking about, including growth,

but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just

That I just told you about.

We're gonna be taking in trillions of dollars,

and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive,

it's relatively speaking not very expensive

compared to the kind of numbers we'll be taking in.

We're gonna make this into an incredible country

that can afford to take care of its people,

and then we'll worry about the rest of the world.

Let's help other people.

But we're going to take care of our country first.

This is about America first. It's about "make America great again".

We have to do it, because right now, we're a failing nation.

So, we'll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.

What was that?

That applause isn't satisfaction with the answer,

it's relief that it's finally over.

That is the public-speaking equivalent of an audience faking an orgasm.

"You did it, you did it, you can stop now, please."

But look at his answer, this is the full text.

It's like ChatGPT having a mental breakdown.

A bunch of incoherent rambling about nonspecific implications

that tariffs will fix everything, which of course, they won't!

Look, the bad news is, for the next two months,

we're gonna be subjected to an excruciating amount of nonsense.

The good news is, come November,

there is a chance for America to reject that bullshit,

and possibly forever.

And if that happens,

it's hard to put into words how liberating that might feel.

But luckily, I know of one particular sticker

that really gets that feeling across pretty fucking well.

And now, this.

And Now:

HSN's Tony Little has something he wants you to know about him.

People also know I had a lot of challenges in my life.

So, I had knee problems. I had back problems.

I was hit by a school bus.

You even talked about it on air that you've had knee issues.

I had every issue. I was hit by a school bus.

I've always had back issues, from being hit by a school bus.

I've also had back problems, because I was hit by a school bus.

I wanted people to realize, you know, I was hit by a school bus.

I was hit by a school bus. A lot of people know my story.

I hit the only hill in Florida and hit a tree.

I was hit by a school bus.

I hit the only hill in Florida and hit a tree.

I hit the only hill in Florida and hit a tree.

Hit the only hill in Florida and hit a tree.

I hit the only hill in Florida on Halloween.

I hit the only hill in Florida and hit a tree.

And then I was hit by a lobster truck in Miami.

I was hit by a lobster truck.

I had to go on and get hit by a lobster truck.

- Listen, the lobster truck - Got hit by a lobster truck.

But the main one was when I was hit with the school bus.

I was also hit by a school bus.

Hit the only hill in Florida and hit a tree.

Hit by a lobster truck in Miami. I mean, that was just my life.

But anyway, forget that part of it.

Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns lunch.

The meal that you save for friends that aren't interesting enough

for dinner.

Specifically, we're gonna talk about school lunch,

which is, among other things, the inspiration for this bonkers PSA

from the 1980s.

I'm tired of candy! Tired of gum!

Tired of hunger, and food that's no fun!

I'm tired of pretending I don't like spaghetti,

but school lunch keeps me roarin' ready and rock steady.

Pizza, spaghetti, burgers!

With Chow Daddy in your school cafeteria,

it's the fun place to be for lunch.

Okay. Let's break that down.

Straight away, we open on a close-up of Chow Daddy,

whose very name makes him sound

like the undefeated pussy-eating champion of the world.

Then, he claims, "I'm tired of candy, tired of gum"

a bold choice if you're writing something kids need to relate to,

before continuing, "I'm tired of pretending I don't like spaghetti".

And, what? Who's forcing you to do that, CD?

He then throws in the moonwalk,

cementing the notion he's a public access Michael Jackson from "Thriller".

And ends by simply listing foods, ending with the concept of "desserts".

I don't know how that encouraged kids to eat school lunch,

but it's fascinating to watch, and one day,

I'm sure we'll find out how much weapons-grade cocaine it took

to come up with that ad.

The lunches Chow Daddy is referring to

come from the National School Lunch Program,

the federally assisted program that provides meals to schoolchildren.

It was launched in 1946, and since then,

has grown to become massive,

with over 90% of public schools participating in it.

Last year alone, the program provided 4.6 billion lunches.

Which is incredible!

But school lunches are also the subject of constant criticism from kids,

which shouldn't be surprising.

Kids are picky. Whole new foods are created to combat that.

Gogurt only exists because some kid was like

"over my dead body will I eat yogurt with a spoon,"

"I'd like it to come out of a plastic esophagus,"

and the market complied.

But nevertheless, if you ask students for their opinions

on their school lunches, they will be brutally honest.

If you had to describe school lunch in one word, how would you describe it?

- I would say weird. - Rancid.

- Raw. - Unappetizing.

I don't like the taste or the texture. Food is always cold.

The portions are, like, small.

They gave us two chicken tenders. What am I gonna do with that?

I mean, to be fair, she is right about that.

The correct number of chicken tenders is not two.

That isn't the correct number for any food.

I want my chicken tenders in odd prime numbers.

Three is a snack, five is a meal, and seven is a cry for help.

But I'm not here tonight to shit on school lunches.

Because the very fact they happen at all is remarkable.

School nutrition directors often say they run

the "biggest restaurant in town,"

which doesn't seem like an overstatement

when you see this snapshot from a school in LA.

Usually, you start lunch around nine o'clock.

We have to cook everything in batches, because we don't have enough ovens.

And then so, from 10:00 to, I'd say, 11:30,

everybody's panicking the whole time.

So, we do the hamburgers first, we get those going,

we get the fries going, then we get pizza going,

get the chicken nuggets for the vegan menu today.

So, it's constantly batch, batch, batch.

We serve about, I'd say, 1,500 a day or more.

That includes breakfast, lunch, and supper.

Okay, putting aside the cognitive dissonance of having chicken nuggets

be the vegan menu item of the day, that is really impressive.

If you had to do 1,500 of whatever your job is, even once,

you would snap.

If you were a vet and had to give one dog its ear medicine, fine.

10 dogs? That's a lot, but okay.

100? This is getting unreasonable.

But 1,500 dogs need ear medicine and some of them are vegan?

Just walk the fuck out and start a new life somewhere else.

Lunch programs are such a massive undertaking,

they've even been referred to as a "daily miracle".

And for many kids, school meals are actually their most reliable source

of nutrition.

Which is why it is so important the program work as well as it can,

for as many kids as it can.

Unfortunately, in too many places, that is just not the case.

So, given that, tonight,

with many schools around the country just starting back up again,

let's talk about school lunches.

And let's start with the quality of the food.

Because those students weren't entirely off-base.

Not every meal served inside a school is perfect.

But that's often because school cafeterias are having to operate

under severe budget constraints.

School lunches are subsidized by the government,

which sets a ceiling on how much it'll pay for any given meal.

But that ceiling is set way too low.

One survey of school districts found that around two-thirds said

the funds they received were not sufficient to cover the costs

of producing lunch.

Which makes sense when you find out they only get around $4 per meal,

which has to cover everything from food costs

to equipment upgrades to staff salaries.

Just listen to this former head chef at Noma,

one of the top restaurants in the world,

who founded a company that places professional chefs in school kitchens,

explain what happens to that $4, and everything it has to go toward.

That's actually for maintenance, it's for paying people to make the food.

When it's all said and done,

you have about a dollar and a quarter for food.

Making food, a meal, that kids really want to eat

for $1.25 is super challenging.

Yeah, of course, it is.

$1.25 doesn't cover the cost of food pretty much anywhere.

Even at Costco, the hot dog and soda combo is $1.50,

and that is only because the co-founder once said, and this is true

"If you raise the price of the fucking hot dog, I will kill you."

That is a real quote, from a true leader.

So, the budget alone is a real challenge.

As is the fact that it's important kids actually take the meals.

Because the government only reimburses schools

for meals that students take.

Meaning, if kids don't like what's being served and ignore it,

the school doesn't get any money, and goes into the hole.

So, you need an appealing meal that comes in at rock-bottom prices.

That's a key reason why many schools opt to just heat and serve

pre-made meals. And that approach has opened them up to criticism.

Jamie Oliver, a man to whom I am surprisingly not related,

had a show in 2010 where he tried to make over the menus

in a West Virginia school, and he made a big show of being appalled

at what the children were being fed.

The freezer was just basically an Aladdin's cave of processed crap.

Okay, so this is pizza for tomorrow, yeah?

So, you have pizza for breakfast and then they have it for lunch?

Bloody hell. So, this meat is already cooked, yeah?

Yeah, when it grows up it will be scrambled eggs.

- So, that is scrambled eggs? - It's egg. We steam it.

I didn't know what most of it was

and when I don't know what something is, the alarm bells go off.

Do you honestly think that we could do from raw state every day?

Yes.

Okay. I have a lot of questions there, but I guess my first is,

I know I have a British accent, and my name is almost his name,

and I have a show where I essentially tell America

that it's doing everything wrong, but am I like that?

Please tell me that I'm not like that.

Because while the dream of every single school cooking from scratch

is a lovely idea, it might not be feasible for a lot of school districts.

Not only are there the cost and labor issues,

but they also need to navigate strict nutritional guidelines.

The federal government sets standards for things

like the amount and types of fruits and vegetables required to be on a plate.

But it can be hard to meet them on a tight budget,

something famously illustrated during the Reagan era,

when his administration slashed the federal school lunch budget,

then briefly tried bending the nutritional guidelines

to a truly ridiculous extent.

Also getting attention today was that elementary school lunch

sampled by members of Congress yesterday.

The meal consisting of a small meat patty,

six French fries, a glass of milk, and ketchup,

classified as a vegetable,

was representative of new federal guidelines issued to save money

on subsidized school lunches.

Now, much has been made about the whole "ketchup as a vegetable" thing,

but I don't think people talked enough about the mystery meat patty

being served with a glass of milk.

That looks like a hamburger with a terminal illness.

It looks like the cracked soil of a Dust Bowl-era farm.

I read once that ultramarathon runners in Death Valley

would eat bananas, then throw them up,

and the banana vomit would bake in the sun

forming little patties on the ground, and I bet it looks like that.

The point is, ketchup isn't a vegetable,

Reagan made things worse,

and I've been trying to offload that banana fact for the past five years.

And the thing is, even when, with good intentions,

we manage to raise the nutritional standards for lunches,

it can then be a real challenge to make them appetizing.

During the Obama administration, access to school lunches

was expanded greatly

thanks to the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act,

which also updated guidelines to make meals more nutritious.

And while that act produced great results overall,

some students hated the new, healthier options,

sharing photos with the hashtag "thanks Michelle Obama."

Which, to their credit, is funny.

When the nutrition went high, the kids went low.

But it did take some trial, error, and flexibility

to make those new standards work.

For instance, the act required that breads had to be "whole grain-rich".

But as one food service director in New Mexico said,

"Many families in the Southwest will not accept whole-grain tortillas,"

and, I quote, "We simply cannot afford to feed our trash cans".

Similarly, a school district in Mississippi tried to make

a 100% whole-grain biscuit,

which "was not received as well by students,"

so the school is now allowed to operate on 80% of whole grains.

Which does feel like a good compromise.

Because a whole grain biscuit is not a biscuit.

At that point, let's just make ice cream sandwiches

where the cookies are celery and the ice cream is children's Motrin,

because it seems words don't matter anymore.

The fact is, school nutrition directors have to strike a delicate balance

between the perfect, and the achievable.

That former Noma chef you saw earlier gets incredibly frustrated

when talking about how chefs who work outside of school kitchens

tend to look down on some of the food that he makes now.

It's funny because we've had a lot of peers,

a lot of my peers have come and seen what we do

and they're disappointed by what we do.

Your colleagues are disappointed?

Yeah, in the sense that, "I thought this was going to be something else."

And I said, "I don't give a fuck what you think because it's not about you."

You know, if you have $1.25 to feed people

and that's your constraint and you're feeding kids

and you start to prioritize things like sustainability and locality

and seasonality, then you don't fucking understand how the world works.

You don't understand what food costs.

Yeah, he's right. I'm not sure why the decor of that stage

is "TED Talk in the jungle", but he is right.

It's all very well for Jamie Oliver to want schools to cook from scratch

with fresh ingredients all the time,

but it's a lot harder to be idealistic when you're slinging

1,000 portions of hot lunch to kids in a cramped kitchen,

all in 15 or 20 minutes.

Reality is a hell of a sous chef.

But let's say that you could create lunches that were nutritious,

delicious, and affordable.

That still doesn't address the bigger problem with our school lunch program,

which is that, in many states, it is not feeding everyone who needs it.

And that is a huge problem, because as I mentioned,

for lots of kids, it might be their only guaranteed meal of the day,

as this cafeteria worker in Washington state explains.

Yeah, a lot of kids go home during the Christmas break,

they don't have food.

They don't have food, so they're so happy to come back to school.

Actually, the reason I became a lunch lady

is because I wanted to give the kids food that didn't get it at home,

like I didn't.

I was always happy to go to school, just because I get to eat.

We didn't have a lot of food,

and when you go to school, you know you're gonna eat.

That's worth going to school.

Her commitment to feeding kids is beautiful. And she is right!

Anything is more appealing if you know there's gonna be food there.

A work meeting, a wedding, even giving blood!

You think I'm doing that out of altruism?

Where else can a grown man drink apple juice and eat little cookie packs

free of judgment?

Drain me, Nurse Gwen, drain me, but keep the Lorna Doones coming.

So, school lunch is a critical social good.

The problem is, in order to get a free or reduced-price lunch,

families have to fill out eligibility paperwork,

and that alone can be prohibitive.

There may be language barriers for some parents,

and for others, social stigma.

As one expert points out,

"Oftentimes these forms are on a brightly colored piece of paper.

"They say Free School Lunch Form."

And for parents, it can feel like the form is effectively saying,

"I can't afford to feed my child."

And they're having to ask their kid to hand that form to a teacher.

On top of that, the thresholds to qualify are often so low,

they exclude families who need it.

This year, a family of four earning around $40,000 a year or less

is eligible for free meals, and one earning around $58,000 or less

is eligible for reduced-price meals.

But if you make a penny more than that, your kids have to pay full price.

And that can quickly become a steep financial burden.

My son used to always tell me that he didn't eat

because he didn't want to make me have to pay for it.

She says she's always made just above the cutoff to qualify

for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program.

But her budget is still tight.

School lunch for her kids costs more than $250 a month.

With four kids in school, that adds up really quick.

Of course, it does.

Kids clearly should not be refraining from eating for financial reasons.

They should be refusing to eat for one of the multitudes of kid reasons,

such as, the food looks weird,

it's too hot outside, it's too cold outside,

or I saw a bird.

And kids whose families can't afford to pay can accumulate

what's commonly called lunch debt,

and the cost to schools can be significant.

One sampling of just over 800 districts found that their total meal debt

exceeded $17 million last year.

Unfortunately, the solution some have hit on is to pressure families

for that debt, and sometimes children directly,

through a practice known as "lunch shaming".

You may have heard stories about how some schools have given kids

who owe money an alternative lunch, like a cold cheese sandwich.

While others require students do chores.

A report from last year found some schools in Kansas

wouldn't allow kids with unpaid debt to participate in activities

or would even withhold grades from parents until debt was paid.

And still other kids have been forced to wear wristbands,

or had their hands or arms stamped, to show they're behind in payment.

And incredibly, some tactics have been even worse than that.

Earlier this month, the Wyoming Valley West School District

in northeastern Pennsylvania sent letters to about 40 families,

telling them their children could be sent to foster care

if they didn't pay up.

The foster care issue

I couldn't believe that that's what it said.

Four other Wyoming Valley West School board members agree,

as does school administrator Joe Muth. He signed that letter.

It could have been toned down.

I don't know how to describe other than, in writings,

we could have toned it down a notch.

Okay, "could have toned it down a notch" is putting it mildly.

That is something that guy should've realized before signing the letter.

Frankly, Clippy should've popped up and said,

"It looks like you're threatening to separate families and throw children"

"in foster care over a few hundred bucks of lunch debt."

"Are you sure you want to fucking do that?"

Lunch debt's become such a ubiquitous problem

that kids finding ways to pay it off is now a trope

of supposedly heartwarming human-interest stories like these.

A second grader is paying off the school lunch debt for everybody at his school

and kids in six other schools!

On Tuesday, fifth grader Daken Kramer giving the school district

a check for $7,300,

money he raised to help pay for his classmates' school lunch debt.

Caitlin decided all of the money she raised would go towards paying off

the school lunch debt of 123 students in her San Diego school district.

How about that? Five years old, guys.

It's amazing when someone that young just knows to pay it forward.

I mean, it is amazing, but she shouldn't have to do it!

Let a five-year-old spend that money on five-year-old shit,

like a slinky, or Play-Doh, or Fingerlings.

Little creatures for your fingers. Monkeys, unicorns,

this cunty little bird. They're adorable.

And they make you feel alive. And the reason I know that is,

I actually have one on right now!

But even this isn't managing to cheer me up!

You've failed me, you little fucker!

It's frankly no wonder that, when you combine the stigma of receiving

a free or reduced-price lunch, and the risk of racking up debt,

even kids who are eligible can end up choosing not to participate.

In fact, in 2019, nearly 30 million students were eligible for the meals,

but only 22 million received them.

Meaning over seven million eligible students missed out on meals,

with experts arguing that stigma played a big role in that.

Which is terrible! And at this point, I actually have some good news.

Because there is a way to solve a lot of the problems that I've shown you.

It's a policy known as Universal Free Meals.

Basically, every kid at every school can have breakfast or lunch,

at school, if they want it.

And while I know that might sound like a utopian dream,

the thing is, we actually already did it, for two years,

during the pandemic.

Federal lawmakers introduced a waiver program that paid

for free breakfasts and lunches for every public school kid

in the country, regardless of family income.

The waivers also increased the reimbursement rate for each meal

by around 20%.

Meaning schools had more money to spend on making and serving meals.

And early research suggests that had real benefits.

A survey of school districts representing over five million students

found that, in 2021, average daily participation in lunch

increased by approximately 1.4 million,

with 95% of districts reporting it reduced child hunger,

and 82% reporting the program supported academic achievement.

In short, way more kids were eating every day,

and it was helping them in school.

The waiver program worked. But in June of 2022, it expired.

And unfortunately, some lawmakers were completely fine with that.

By returning these programs back to normal,

we can uphold our responsibility to taxpayers

and the principle that aid should be targeted and temporary.

Wow, that is heartless.

"Aid should be targeted and temporary" sounds like something

a Reagan action figure would say when you pull its string,

along with "take that, welfare queen!"

and "Jodie Foster sure would be impressed if I died!"

And when the cutoff came, teachers who saw the program roll back firsthand

can tell you, it was rough.

On the first day of school this year,

I announced to my students that school lunches were no longer free.

And this moment stays with me.

The confusion, the darting eyes, the questions.

There were students who realized in that moment

that they were not going to eat that day.

For fucks sake, no teacher should have to do that, especially that one,

who clearly cares about her students.

I know the fun teacher when I see one,

and that is the fun teacher right there.

Bright color-blocked outfit, fun glasses, purple hair.

There is a class of misfit seventh graders

for whom she is their absolute queen.

If you get assigned to Ms. Jung's class, you are making dioramas,

you're doing nonstop skits,

and you're building the sickest plastic bottle hydroponic garden system

in the entire school.

Ms. Jung's got passes to the science museum of Minnesota,

and if you go with her, you're touching a dinosaur bone.

For many families, the program expiring meant they had to navigate

the eligibility forms for the first time.

One school nutrition director in Ohio said she had to deny one single mother

who told her she'd missed the cutoff for reduced meals

by just $100 of gross income.

And all this resulted in a lot fewer kids getting lunches.

And students from low-income families across the country

are now accruing school lunch debt in record numbers.

Now, to their credit, some states have refused to go backward,

and these eight have passed Universal Free Meal programs,

often funding them out of state budgets,

though passing those laws wasn't always easy.

In Minnesota, for instance, you've probably seen the joyous photo

of Tim Walz being hugged by school kids when he signed

his state's program into law.

But some Republican lawmakers there fiercely opposed it,

offering some less-than convincing arguments.

Mr. President, I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota

that is hungry, yet today.

I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says

they don't have access to enough food to eat.

Now, I should say that hunger is a relative term, Mr. President.

I had a cereal bar for breakfast. I guess I'm hungry now.

What an asshole! First, I don't care what you had for breakfast.

And second, that's not how societal problems work.

You can't go, "I haven't seen hungry people, so they must not exist."

Before seeing this clip,

I'd never seen Chris Parnell's evil midwestern twin,

but that didn't mean you weren't out there, sucking.

And he wasn't the only opponent.

This state rep suggested that the state expand the program,

but stopped short of making it universal,

using herself as an example of why that'd be going too far.

We are using taxpayer dollars to feed my children.

I have two kids in public schools at the North Branch High School right now.

That means that the taxpayers are subsidizing me

to the tune of $1,376.

Tonight you are giving me a $1,376 tax break.

Me. That's my benefit from this bill.

Okay! You're welcome?

Or maybe I'm sorry that happened to you. I don't really know what to say.

You're saying a good thing, but you seem very upset about it.

But a few things about that.

I know capping eligibility might sound like it makes sense,

and the state actually looked into doing that, but decided against it,

as it turns out, it would've "increased the administrative complexity,"

and the increased cost would've eaten into whatever savings.

Also, crucially, by making lunch accessible to all kids,

they could remove the stigma for those whose family can't afford it.

Which is more important than you might realize.

A study in Massachusetts found that 42% of families with children eligible

for free or reduced-price meals,

reported their child would be less likely to eat a school meal

if it wasn't free for all children.

Which does make sense. Kids are perceptive.

They notice who isn't taking a lunch or is forced to eat

a cold cheese sandwich,

and they definitely notice whose hand got fucking stamped.

And look, I'm not saying that there aren't complications here.

Of course, there are. And deep down, you already knew that.

After all, you're watching "It's Always Something with White Urkel."

Making that many meals, consistently, is difficult.

Remember, we're talking about the "biggest restaurants in town".

And there are a lot of moving parts here,

from the sheer scale of the program,

to sourcing food and making it taste good,

to adequately training and paying cafeteria staff.

All of which means Universal Free Meals aren't cheap.

In Minnesota, they budgeted it at $400 million over its first two years,

but it's projected to cost about $80 million more than that.

Though, part of the reason for that increased cost

is higher-than-expected participation in the program,

which is obviously a good thing!

Because, for the final time, the benefits here are clear,

as the head of Minnesota's Department of Education spelled out.

Our educators that I've met and that we've talked to this entire fall

consistently tell me that their students are more attentive

and they're ready to learn.

And they directly attribute this to the availability of nutritious meals

all across the state of Minnesota and throughout the day.

Yeah, that is thousands of kids who aren't going to class feeling hungry,

shamed, or excluded.

That should be the standard in all 50 states.

And if it helps, maybe we should be considering lunch

as an essential school supply, like books or desks.

We accept that they're subsidized by the government

as an investment in kids' futures.

And I'd argue lunch should be, too,

and that the way to achieve that shouldn't be

by asking each state to fund it out of their own budget,

but by passing legislation at the federal level,

similar to what we did in the early days of the pandemic.

Because while that was a truly terrible time,

it's worth also remembering that we got some major stuff done back then, too.

We socially distanced, we watched "Tiger King".

we got our families familiar with Zoom in a way

that we're all still paying the price for,

and it turns out, we fed kids.

In speaking to experts for this story, many said that before 2020,

they thought Universal Free Meals would be incredibly beneficial,

and it would also never happen.

America just doesn't do that sort of thing.

But then it did happen, and seemingly overnight.

And in this one particular area, Americans got to experience

what it was like to have the federal government be responsive

to the needs of the vulnerable.

And once you see what it looks like to help kids,

you kind of can't unring that bell.

In fact, you should keep ringing it so fucking hard,

the rope comes off in your hands.

'Cause we have the power to ensure

that no kid in the country is hungry when school gets dismissed.

And we should be exercising that power,

and making sure that all kids are,

in the words of America's second favorite moonwalking werewolf

of the '80s, roarin' ready and rock steady,

with pizza, burgers, and of course, desserts.

And now, this.

And Now: People on TV Debate When to Decorate for Halloween.

I already saw Halloween decorations out on people's porches.

I'll be honest with you, I may be decorating by Sunday or Monday.

Just do it now!

Leave the studio and purchase an oversize skeleton

from Home Depot this second!

So, I know Zach was saying something about decorating for Halloween.

Is it too early? I would say no.

Never too early.

Correct! It's never too early to prepare for the eve of wraiths

and ghouls and the minions from the animated motion picture "Minions".

I've got at least two neighbors

who have already put up all of their Halloween decorations.

That's impressive. I'm going to make my husband wait 'til October.

That's, I think, a reasonable time.

Wrong! It is not reasonable!

Let your beleaguered husband cover your windows

with fake cobwebs right now or I will call the police!

Is it too early to decorate for Halloween?

- Yes. - No!

Noah and I were out and about early in the morning,

and there was a couple outside already putting up their giant skeleton.

That's two months early. Right? That would be this past weekend.

So, that would be equivalent to, October 25th, seeing Christmas decor.

Shut up! What the fuck is this, math class?

Just do the fucking forecast, Brad!

I saw a thing that said if you decorate for Halloween earlier,

you're a happier person, so if it makes you happy, do it.

I bought a couple pillows. I'm not gonna lie.

We had a list of scary movies that we put together last night to watch.

Yes! Why not? Honestly, these ladies seem super chill!

And I would totally watch scary movies with them!

That's our show, thanks so much for watching!

We're off next week for the Emmys, we'll be back on the 22nd.

See you then, good night!