A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to release full funding for 42 million Americans’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits by Friday, but the US Department of Justice quickly filed an appeal.
“I have never seen an American president so desperate to force children and seniors to go hungry,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “Donald Trump is appealing to a federal court’s order requiring him to pay the full SNAP benefits for this month. This is as ugly and cruel as it gets.”
A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to release full funding for 42 million Americans’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits by Friday, but the US Department of Justice quickly filed an appeal.
“I have never seen an American president so desperate to force children and seniors to go hungry,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “Donald Trump is appealing to a federal court’s order requiring him to pay the full SNAP benefits for this month. This is as ugly and cruel as it gets.”
‘Not Good Enough’: Trump to Pay Partial November SNAP Benefits After Court Rulings
Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal similarly slammed the administration, saying: “Families have already suffered enough, going nearly a week without SNAP. They don’t deserve all of this whiplash from Republicans over the food they need to survive.”
“Republicans have caused the longest-ever government shutdown by refusing to permanently extend cost-saving healthcare tax credits that millions of Americans rely on to afford health coverage,” Tal said. “Now, they are fighting tooth and nail to avoid fully funding SNAP and feeding hungry families and children. Who does that? We need Republicans in Congress to restore full SNAP benefits now, save Americans’ healthcare, and end the government shutdown.” Judge John McConnell, appointed to the District of Rhode Island by former President Barack Obama, previously gave the US Department of Agriculture a choice between making a partial payment by emptying a contingency fund or fully covering food stamps with that funding plus money from other sources. The USDA opted for the former, and warned that it could take weeks to get reduced SNAP benefits to recipients, millions of whom would lose the monthly food aid altogether.
Then, on Tuesday, Trump suggested that the administration would not disperse SNAP benefits until congressional Democrats voted to end what has become the longest government shutdown in US history. Although White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later claimed that “the administration is fully complying with the court order” and “the president is referring to future SNAP payments.”
That same day, lawyers for the municipalities, nonprofits, and labor groups behind the lawsuit that led to McConnell’s initial ruling—one of two SNAP cases currently in the federal court system—filed an emergency request seeking further relief.
On Thursday, McConnell concluded that the USDA’s plan ran afoul of his previous directive and issued the new oral ruling. He reportedly said: “Last weekend, SNAP benefits lapsed for the first time in our nation’s history. This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided.”
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” the judge declared. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
Despite the White House’s attempted clarification, McConnell also said that Trump’s post “stated his intent to defy the court order.”
