Trump Holds SNAP Hostage in Shutdown Fight

WASHINGTON, DC — President Donald Trump has stated on his social media account, Truth Social, that SNAP funding will not be released until the federal shutdown ends, defying court orders instructing him to release the funding for millions of struggling Americans.

Democrats insist on averting expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that’ll double monthly health insurance bills for more than 24 million people, including more than 40,000 Rhode Island HSRI customers. That stalemate continues with GOP Speaker Mike Johnson refusing to negotiate until Democrats agree to allow the subsidies to expire by approving the budget as-is.

A poll by the non-partisan health research firm KFF showed 78 percent of adults support extending the subsidies.

Two U.S. Court Judges, one in Massachusetts and one in Rhode Island,  ruled that Trump and his his Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, had the legal access to an additional $23 billion to fund the program and issued court orders for them to do so. Those court orders gave Trump officials until Monday to deliver the funding, which it failed to do.

Related story: Shutdown Standoff: DEMs Oppose Hiking HSRI Bills

Instead, On Monday, the Trump Administration announced it would begin funding  Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) assistance, but that its contingency fund would only allow half of the usual funding. Tuesday, Trump posted to social media that he would withhold SNAP funding until the shutdown ends.

The judges rulings instructed Trump officials to fund the system from both the estimated $6 billion SNAP contingency  fund or the USDA’s $23 billion “Section 32” fund. Monday marked the first time in the SNAP program’s 61-year history that funds have been halted as Trump officials delayed complying with the court orders.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration is preparing to provide Argentina a $40 billion bailout for its struggling economy, and has begun demolishing the East Wing of the White House in preparation for a new $250 million, 90,000 sq. ft. ballroom that will dwarf the White House itself, according to a PBS report. The day before SNAP benefits were going to run out, after challenging the court orders directing him to fund SNAP, Trump hosted a 1920s – themed ‘Great Gatsby’ Halloween Party.

‘President Trump continues to use hunger as a political weapon, depriving 40 million Americans – most of them children and the elderly – of SNAP benefits in defiance of a court order. It is horrific that an American President would give $40 billion to Argentina while depriving his own citizens of food,” said U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (RI-02).

“It sure seems desperate and indecent to willfully withhold food aid from needy kids and seniors on fixed incomes,” said U.S. Sen. Jack Reed. “It would be indefensible for President Trump to try and take food off the plates of vulnerable children and inflict mass-suffering on their families. President Trump is trying to bully Americans.  His budget would push millions more into poverty in order to give billionaires a bigger tax benefit.  The government is supposed to work for the American people and improve their lives, not deny them services and shrink opportunity.  As we approach Thanksgiving, I believe Americans will strongly condemn President Trump for trying to bully kids, the elderly, sick, disabled, and vulnerable.  Democrats are fighting to lower prices, save health care, and reopen the federal government.  And we will hold President Trump accountable.”

Both the situation requiring the rulings and the question of President Donald Trump and his lieutenants’ obedience to the rule of law are historically new in American politics, a hallmark of the continuing Trump Coup angling for Congress’s Constitutional spending power, ignoring Judicial independence, dismantling federal agencies, damaging America’s economic relationships, weakening relationships with allies nearby and overseas, harming small businesses and increasing prices just as holiday shopping begins.