One day after the Department of Agriculture said it would tap an emergency fund to pay partial benefits for the 42 million Americans in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, President Trump reversed course and announced that his administration will not provide any additional funding for the nation's main nutrition assistance program until the government shutdown comes to an end.
"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!" Trump said in a post on his social media platform.
Although the meaning of Trump's message seemed clear enough, his press secretary provided a sharply different interpretation of his words. Karoline Leavitt told reporters that "the administration is fully complying" with a court order requiring the administration to fund SNAP using a $5.3 billion emergency fund, enough to pay about half of November's scheduled benefits. Leavitt said that Trump's threat to not use the contingency fund to pay this month's benefits, as ordered, was really the president's way of saying that he wants to avoid tapping that fund "in the future."
"He does not want to have to keep tapping into an emergency fund and depleting it in the case of a catastrophe in this country," Leavitt said. "He wants to have those funds preserved, as they should be."
Leavitt also repeated a warning provided by the Department of Agriculture yesterday that it will take time to distribute the partial benefit payment for the month of November.
Earlier Tuesday, a group of cities and non-profits went to court to force the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full in November, rather than the partial payment promised by the White House. Anti-hunger groups and some Democrats are calling on the administration to tap a separate, larger fund dedicated to child nutrition and school meals to pay this month's benefits. A federal judge scheduled a hearing in the case for Thursday afternoon.