What statements did USDA Secretary or White House officials make about using tariff revenue for WIC in 2019?

1. What supporters said — a creative fix to keep mothers and babies fed

Officials and White House spokespeople presented the use of tariff revenue as an emergency, pragmatic response to avoid interruptions to WIC benefits. The White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt explicitly framed the transfer as a humane, stopgap measure, saying the Administration would not allow impoverished mothers and babies to go hungry and touting the legal route under Section 32 ^[1]. The USDA, according to the supplied reporting, confirmed the department would utilize tariff revenue and announced distribution of roughly $300 million in unused tariff receipts to states to support WIC operations amid shutdown conditions, portraying the move as necessary continuity funding for a program serving millions ^{[2] [1]}. Proponents emphasized the immediacy and limited scope of the action rather than a permanent funding redesign.

2. What the official record from 2019 shows — missing direct Secretary quotes

The available contemporaneous policy records from 2019 do not show direct statements from the USDA Secretary specifically endorsing use of tariff revenue for WIC. Congressional and USDA trade-aid analyses from 2019 focus on farmer relief programs and do not document a practice of redirecting tariff receipts to WIC; the Congressional Research Service and related summaries of the 2019 trade aid package do not mention WIC funding via tariff revenue or direct statements from senior USDA officials on that matter ^{[3] [4]}. This absence suggests that while later statements and 2025 reporting attribute a tariff-transfer approach to the Administration, the explicit, recorded endorsement by the USDA Secretary in 2019 is not captured in the supplied 2019 policy documents.

3. The legal claim officials cited — Section 32 authority and contested scope

Officials cited Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935 as the statutory basis to reallocate certain customs receipts for agricultural needs, including WIC support. The Administration’s invocation of Section 32 was presented as the legal mechanism enabling a transfer of unused tariff receipts to states for WIC, with reporting describing a $300 million distribution under that authority ^{[2] [1]}. However, the documentation in the supplied analyses also records legal and political dispute: some experts and lawmakers raised questions about whether Section 32 or other authorities permit such use of tariff receipts absent explicit congressional appropriation, and whether redirecting tariff revenue during a shutdown sets a novel precedent for funding discrete domestic programs ^[2].

4. Gaps in contemporaneous documentation and alternative explanations

The most salient gap is the lack of clear, contemporaneous attribution in 2019 policy literature tying the USDA Secretary to a public endorsement of tariff-to-WIC transfers. Multiple 2019-era summaries of USDA actions and budgets do not reference such a policy for WIC, focusing instead on trade aid packages for farmers and FY2019 budget proposals that set topline numbers for WIC funding rather than describing tariff transfers ^{[3] [5]}. This raises two possibilities consistent with the record: either internal administrative measures were taken without broad public documentation by the Secretary, or the later public claims and reuse of tariff receipts derive from practice or legal interpretation that was not widely reported in 2019 government policy overviews ^{[6] [7]}.

5. Political reaction and the policy implications officials and critics highlighted

Reporting notes immediate political friction: advocacy groups and some lawmakers called the tariff transfer a temporary fix, urging Congress to provide full-year appropriations, while critics questioned legality and potential for executive reallocation of tariff revenue to other programs during funding lapses ^{[1] [2]}. The supplied analyses show Democrats proposed legislation to guarantee WIC benefits and debated whether the Administration’s move could be replicated to bypass appropriations in other contexts, framing the action as both applause-worthy for addressing hunger and controversial for its constitutional and budgetary implications ^[2].

6. Bottom line — factual synthesis and what remains unproven

The verified facts in the supplied record are that the White House spokeswoman and USDA spokesperson publicly described using tariff receipts under Section 32 to fund WIC as an emergency measure, with an announced $300 million transfer to states to sustain benefits ^{[1] [2]}. What is not established in the provided materials is a clear, contemporaneous public statement from the USDA Secretary in 2019 explicitly endorsing that action, nor a broad statutory consensus in 2019 policy reports that such transfers were a standard or uncontested funding mechanism for WIC ^{[3] [4]}. The narrative thus combines documented administration assertions and confirmed transfers with documented gaps and legal-political disputes that remained unresolved in the supplied sources.