Trump admin must pay SNAP benefits despite shutdown: judge

A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ceasing to pay SNAP benefits that help feed 42 million Americans during the U.S. government shutdown.

The oral ruling by Judge Jack McConnell, which directed that those food stamp benefits be paid out of emergency funds “as soon as possible,” came a day before the administration was set to cut off the aid.

“There is no doubt, and it is beyond argument, that irreparable harm will begin to occur if it hasn’t already occurred in the terror it has caused some people about the availability of funding for food for their family,” McConnell said.

McConnell’s ruling came minutes after another federal judge in Boston, who is overseeing a separate but similar lawsuit, said that the group of states that are plaintiffs in that case is likely to prove that the suspension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits was “unlawful.”

That judge, Indira Talwani, gave the administration until Monday to tell her if it will authorize at least reduced SNAP benefits for November.

President Donald Trump, in a statement on social media later Friday, said, “Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available, and now two Courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do.”

“I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Therefore, I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”

“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding, just like I did with Military and Law Enforcement Pay,” he said.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case before McConnell argued at a court hearing Friday that the cutoff of SNAP benefits was an “arbitrary and capricious act” that had caused “a crisis” for the Americans who need food stamps to eat.

A Justice Department lawyer argued that SNAP did not exist anymore because there were no congressionally appropriated funds for it as a result of the shutdown.

The lawyer, Tyler Becker, also argued it was the administration’s discretion whether to use up to $6 billion in contingency funds already set aside by Congress to continue issuing SNAP benefits.

“There is no SNAP program and, as a result, the government cannot just provide SNAP benefits,” Becker said.

“A shutdown is not an emergency,” said Becker, adding that if there was an emergency, it had been created by Congress in failing to appropriate money to keep the government operating.

But McConnell told the administration to use the available contingency funds to maintain at least some of the SNAP benefits that are normally paid.

The judge also said the administration needed to examine whether other federal funds would be available to keep the program operating in the absence of a funding bill by Congress.

McConnell’s ruling granted a temporary restraining order to plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Providence against the Trump administration to maintain the benefits.

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, during an interview Friday afternoon with NBC News’ “Meet the Press Now,” would not say whether the Trump administration would comply with either court ruling. 

“Today’s ruling is a lifeline for millions of families, seniors, and veterans who depend on SNAP to put food on the table,” the coalition of plaintiffs said in a statement.

“It reaffirms a fundamental principle: no administration can use hunger as a political weapon,” the coalition said. “This victory is about more than one program — it’s about the American values of fairness, compassion, and accountability that hold our democracy together.”

The plaintiffs include a group of cities, charitable and faith-based non-profit groups, unions and business organizations.

The Boston judge, Talwani, in her separate order on Friday, said she was still considering the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order to maintain the benefits.

But she also ordered the administration to tell her by Monday if it would “authorize at least reduced SNAP benefits for November, and, if so, their timeline for determining whether to authorize only reduced SNAP benefits using the Contingency Funds or to authorize full SNAP benefits using both the Contingency Funds and additional available funds.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., praised both rulings.

“Good,” Schumer wrote in a post on the social media site X.

“Trump’s decision to cut off SNAP was vindictive and heartless,” Schumer wrote.

“He was trying to manufacture a hunger crisis so he wouldn’t have to fix healthcare. No president in American history has cut off SNAP during a shutdown, including Trump during his own first term.”

Hassett, the National Economic Council director, blasted the rulings.

“We’re about to use emergency funds from the Department of Agriculture because of a liberal judge ruling that we disagree at the law on,” Hassett said in an interview on Fox News.

“But then we don’t have our emergency funds in case we have a hurricane or we have an emergency — a food emergency,” Hassett said. “And so we’ve got to get the government open. We’ve got to do it as soon as possible. And the Democrats really don’t have a plan.”

The Trump administration blames Senate Democrats for the shutdown, given their refusal to vote for a short-term funding bill proposed by House Republicans, which does not include an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats insist on.