Trump threatens food assistance as US government shutdown drags on

The US government shutdown entered its 35th day on Tuesday, equalling the longest in the country’s history.

United States President Donald Trump has claimed he will only provide nutrition assistance to low-income Americans once the government shutdown ends, appearing to defy two court orders demanding he free up contingency funds to keep the food aid scheme operational.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which serves one in eight Americans each month, was set to freeze on November 1, after the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on October 10that it would not be able to fund the programme if the shutdown continued.

The US government shutdown entered its 35th day on Tuesday, equalling the longest in the country’s history.

Last week, federal judges in the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island doled out separate but similar rulings that told the federal government to cover the benefits by drawing from contingency funds. Following the rulings, the Trump administration said on Monday that it would partially fund the country’s flagship food aid scheme, falling back on about $5bn set aside in emergency reserves.

However, the president appeared to walk back his administration’s plans with a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, saying he would only fund SNAP once the government reopens.

“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!” the president posted on Tuesday morning.

SNAP, known colloquially as food stamps, costs more than $8bn to deploy monthly. A person in the programme receives an average of about $190 each month, while a household receives an average monthly benefit of $356 in groceries. The benefits are typically loaded onto debit cards.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to contradict the president’s social media post on Tuesday afternoon, saying the administration is “fully complying with the court order”, but that releasing the funds will not be a quick process.

“The recipients of these SNAP benefits need to understand [that] it’s going to take some time to receive this money,” Leavitt said. “The president does not want to have to continue to dip into a contingency fund that doesn’t even have enough money, by the way, to fund the full programme.”

The USDA on Monday said that, in light of the ruling by US District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island, one of the judges to initially order the administration to fund SNAP, it would use the contingency funding to pay SNAP recipients 50 percent of their typical allotment, calling it a “cumbersome process” that would result in delayed benefits.

Lawyers at the liberal legal group Democracy Forward, in a motion on Tuesday, told McConnell that the USDA’s statement about delays demonstrated that the administration had failed to resolve the “burdens” entailed by making only partial benefits available.

“Time is of the essence when it comes to hunger,” the lawyers wrote.

Leavitt repeatedly branded the shutdown as a Democrat-led endeavour in her news conference on Tuesday, claiming that the party is willing to hurt the country to score political points.

“The Democrats are intentionally hurting American families, businesses and workers with this shutdown to fight for free healthcare for illegal aliens to appease their radical left-wing base,” she said.

More than 42 million Americans rely on food assistance. Until court-ordered to do so, the Trump administration had said it would not use emergency funds to prop up the programme.

The US government shutdown began on October 1 when Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a funding bill. Since then, both parties have failed 14 times to agree on a stopgap funding measure.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted 54-44 against a “clean” continuing resolution, which had passed the House of Representatives, that would have funded the government through November 21.

Democrats hold a minority in both houses of Congress, and they are trying to use the spending bill to force Republicans to negotiate on critical healthcare spending.

Democrats want Congress to extend expiring subsidies before the US healthcare enrolment period begins in November and reverse cuts to Medicaid assistance for low-income people and those with disabilities.