President Donald Trump said in a social media post that his administration wouldn’t pay food assistance benefits until the federal shutdown ends, a statement his press secretary shortly after explained wasn’t intended to suggest he would violate U.S. District Court orders that the benefits be paid.
“The administration is fully complying with the court order,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said following Trump’s comment on Nov. 4. “I just spoke to the president about it. (But) The recipients of these SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits need to understand, it’s going to take some time.”
It continued to be unclear how and when SNAP benefits would be paid out to the states and some 42 million Americans who receive food assistance under the program, including 1.4 million Michigan residents.
Trump had previously said he would provide the funding for food assistance under SNAP, “if we are given the appropriate legal direction by the court,” and, on Oct. 31, federal judges in Rhode Island and Massachusetts told the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, which oversees SNAP, to decide by Nov. 3 whether it would provide partial or full benefits in November.
But then, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, Trump posted on his Truth Social site a statement which, taken literally, contradicted that.
“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly “handed” to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT,” Trump wrote.
Leavitt said the president did not mean that SNAP benefits wouldn’t be paid.
“The Democrats have forced the administration into a very untenable position,” she said. “We are digging into a contingency fund that is supposed to be for emergencies, for catastrophes, for war. And the president does not want to have to tap into this fund in the future. That’s what he was referring to in his Truth Social post.”
“The Department of Agriculture, as for the latest SNAP payment in the judge’s order, put out guidance to states today on how to get that money to the recipients of SNAP but it’s going to take some time,” she added. “The best way to get the full amount of SNAP benefits to those beneficiaries is for Democrats to reopen the government.”
“He is referring to future SNAP payments,” Leavitt later said, adding that he was referring to protecting the contingency fund available, not violating a court order.
In his Oct. 31 order, U.S. District Court Chief Judge John McConnell Jr., in Rhode Island, told the USDA it had to determine by Nov. 3 whether it would pay partial benefits by using some $5 billion in contingency funds set aside for that purpose or pay full benefits using those funds as well as others potentially available.
The USDA said it would provide partial payments but added that it was unclear when those could begin because of technical issues and the complexities of setting individual benefit levels for tens of millions of recipients who receive those benefits through state agencies.
The USDA indicated that process could “take anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months.”
Churches, labor unions and nonprofit organizations that brought that case have asked the judge to find the Trump administration in violation of his order of Oct. 31 and issue a restraining order on the cessation of benefits, noting that the judge had told the USDA it needed to begin making at least partial payments to the states by Wednesday, Nov. 5.
They said the judge should “compel defendants to release the withheld funding, in its entirety, for November SNAP benefits.” The judge ordered the USDA to respond to that request and scheduled a hearing for Nov. 6.
The potential stop to SNAP benefits — which no other administration has previously threatened during a shutdown, as Trump’s did, on Oct. 24 — has ramped up pressure on lawmakers in both parties as the shutdown that began Oct. 1 continues. Democrats in the U.S. Senate have continued to refuse Trump’s and Republicans’ insistence that they provide the needed votes to end the shutdown. Republicans have a majority in the chamber, as they do in the U.S. House, but need seven votes from the Democratic caucus to pass a resolution to fund the government.
Democrats have argued they won’t provide those votes until Republicans negotiate a plan to address a looming expiration of expanded subsidies that will make insurance premiums for policies under the Affordable Care Act skyrocket next year.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump threatens to withhold SNAP benefits but White House says they’ll be paid
Reporting by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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