WASHINGTON, D.C. (LOOTPRESS) – President Donald Trump said Tuesday that federal food benefits provided through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will be issued only when Democrats vote to end the ongoing government shutdown.
In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote that SNAP benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
Mr. Trump’s comment came a day after administration lawyers told a federal court in Rhode Island that the government would tap into a contingency fund to issue partial food stamp payments for November.
The Justice Department said in a filing that the Department of Agriculture would provide states with information necessary for calculating the benefits due to each eligible household, allowing states to begin disbursements.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on X that her agency sent that guidance to states Tuesday morning but warned it would be a “cumbersome process” that could result in a weeks-long delay in food stamp payments going out to recipients.
“If the government opens, families get their FULL benefit much more quickly,” she wrote.
The government shutdown entered its 35th day Tuesday and is on track to become the longest in U.S. history later in the day, surpassing the lapse in federal funding that occurred during Mr. Trump’s first term.
More than 42 million Americans rely on SNAP to purchase food each month.
The program is funded by the federal government and administered by states, which distribute nutrition assistance to eligible participants.
The Department of Agriculture said late last month that food aid would not go out to recipients on Nov. 1 because “the well has run dry” amid the shutdown.
The notice followed the administration’s decision not to use roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits flowing for November.
The department told states in a memo that the reserve funds were “not legally available to cover regular benefits.”
