Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter
State Sen. Saud Anwar (D–South Windsor) has decided to experience poverty — by drinking tea and announcing it on Facebook.
Yes, in a breathtaking display of moral courage, Anwar has taken the “SNAP Challenge” to show solidarity with people on food assistance by living on $6.20 a day. So far, his menu includes one banana, three glasses of water, and a cup of tea — but don’t fret; a man that full of himself doesn’t need many calories.
He posted solemnly that “no one in Connecticut should go hungry,” moments before reminding everyone that he’s voluntarily doing just that for a week. It’s the kind of self-imposed misery only a politician could love.
You have to hand it to him: surviving on $6.20 a day is tough. But let’s be honest—Saud Anwar isn’t rationing food, he’s rationing attention. The man has three medical specialties, a state paycheck, and enough credentials to open his own hospital wing. Yet here he is, counting banana slices as if he’s liberating Connecticut from hunger one selfie at a time. Hunger doesn’t make him relatable; it makes him ridiculous.
Anwar blames the looming “hunger crisis” not on decades of bureaucratic failure, but on “the Republican-led government shutdown and the Trump administration’s refusal to use $6 billion in emergency SNAP funds.” In reality, it’s Democrats in Congress who are refusing to pass a clean budget and prolonging the shutdown so they can pad it with pork and advance their big-spending agenda.
This isn’t the senator’s first dramatic gesture. In 2019, he hosted an overnight “sleep-out” in South Windsor to “raise awareness” for homelessness, joining U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and local activists. NBC Connecticut reported that “the drop in temperature this weekend didn’t stop 25 brave people from sleeping out in the cold… to raise awareness about homelessness,” and quoted Anwar saying, “I’m so glad this town of South Windsor, people join in to say that they are going to participate in the solution across the state.”
It’s unclear what sleeping on a suburban lawn proved, other than that politicians will do anything for a headline.
Apparantly pretending to be homeless for a night wasn’t enough, so next came prison. Earlier this year, Anwar asked the state Department of Correction to incarcerate him at Garner Correctional Institution for 72 hours so he could “experience” solitary confinement. The DOC refused, citing “substantial safety, security and logistical concerns.” Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie summed it up bluntly, calling it “performative nonsense.”
Undeterred, Anwar told reporters, “People can attack me for trying to get a glimpse of the pain that others feel.” He even explained that when he’s writing a bill about homelessness, “I go and sleep outside so I can experience the cold,” and when writing about food insecurity, “I fast enough so I can feel the food insecurity and the pain that goes with it.”
Maybe next week he’ll schedule a root canal to better understand dental costs.
It’s hard not to miss the timing. This week’s fasting act looks less like empathy and more like damage control. Just a week earlier, Anwar was at Hartford’s “No Kings” rally, livestreaming himself “standing up for democracy” while posing beside protesters joking about death by cheeseburger. The backlash was swift, and suddenly the senator who cheered death jokes about his opponents is starving for forgiveness — and attention.
So if you’re keeping score: the senator has camped in the cold, begged to be jailed, posed at rallies wishing death on his political opponents, and is now living on a banana and narcissism.
His hunger stunt isn’t compassion; it’s cleanup. The same man who posed next to a “cholesterol, do your job” sign — a post that drew more than 2,000 furious comments along with being showcased on the Libs of TikTok — is now pretending to understand hunger. It’s not a show of solidarity; it’s a PR stunt dressed as self-sacrifice. Connecticut isn’t fooled. The only thing starving here is his credibility.
Stay updated with the latest in the Constitution State with The CT Centinal
