Trump Officials Can't Decide Whether To Comply With Court Order To Fund SNAP

The administration has until Monday to decide how it's going to fund the country's biggest food aid program for November amid the ongoing shutdown.

Some Trump administration officials gave conflicting responses on Sunday about whether the White House plans to comply with a court order requiring them to fund the country’s biggest food aid program, as the government shutdown enters its second month.

The Department of Agriculture planned to withhold $8 billion in payments that are meant to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) running through this month, starting Saturday. The move threatens food access for the 42 million Americans who use the program.

The plan was blocked on Friday by two federal judges who gave the USDA until Monday to decide how it would pay for food benefits, shutting down the administration’s claim that it would be illegal to use a $5 billion contingency fund to help pay for SNAP benefits under the shutdown.

“We’ve been duct-taping and bubble-gumming WIC and SNAP, which are the vulnerable population’s food programs, now for more than a month,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said Sunday on Fox News. “The judge came down … and said that in fact we do need to use a smaller contingency fund. It won’t even cover about half of what November would cost.”

On Saturday, the court clarified that the government must make at least a partial payment by Wednesday. Rollins did not say whether the USDA would comply with the court order she disagrees with, but said the president ― who spent the weekend golfing and hosting a Gatsby-themed Halloween party ― is “wholly focused” on getting food benefits to Americans.