Judge Orders USDA to Make Full SNAP Payments, Calls Trump’s Post Admission of ‘Intent to Defy’ Court Order

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

A federal judge smacked down the Trump administration Thursday for refusing to pay food stamp benefits, calling a Truth Social post by President Donald Trump an admission of “intent to defy the court order” and requiring the USDA to make payments in full by Friday.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program, commonly referred to as food stamps, is among many government programs affected by the ongoing shutdown, and has been one of the most contentious issues as Republicans and Democrats spar over how to move forward.

Because Congress has not yet passed its regular appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2026, the funding for SNAP benefits lapsed on Oct. 1, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins controversially announced that the benefits would be cut off to the nearly 42 million Americans who receive them as of Nov. 1.

In late October, 25 states and the District of Columbia (a group of those led by Democratic governors and attorneys general) sued the Department of Agriculture over the looming SNAP benefits deadline, arguing that the federal government had a legal obligation to fund food stamps and should be required to tap into USDA emergency funds to do so.

Last Friday, two U.S. District Judges — Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts and Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island, both Obama appointees — ruled within minutes of each other in favor of the plaintiff states that the federal government was required to use those USDA emergency funds to cover SNAP benefits, at least partially.

SNAP benefits cost about $9 billion each month nationally, and the USDA contingency fund at issue had enough to cover just over half the benefits for November.

“The shutdown of the government through funding doesn’t do away with SNAP, it just does away with the funding of it,” said McConnell when issuing his ruling.

The government agreed to tap into a contingency fund that would partially fund SNAP benefits, but McConnell ruled it was not moving fast enough to comply with his previous order and issued a new ruling at a hearing on Thursday.

“It is clear to the court that the administration did not comply,” he said. “The court was clear that the administration had to either make the full payment by this past Monday, or it must ‘expeditiously resolve the administrative and clerical burdens it described in its papers.’ … The record is clear that the administration did neither.”

As reported by Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney, the judge “sharply rebuk[ed] the Trump administration” for what he characterized as willfully defying his order.

The Trump administration had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in deciding not to provide full benefits for November, McConnell said from the bench.

“People have gone without for too long,” he added, ordering the USDA to make full SNAP payments to states by Friday. “Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable.”

The judge pointed to a Truth Social post by Trump that declared “SNAP payments will be given only when the government opens” and called it an admission of the president’s “intent to defy the court order” and withhold SNAP benefits for “political reasons;” the government’s argument this was needed to preserve child nutrition programs was dismissed as a pretext and unpersuasive.

“Evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be burdened, and needless suffering will occur” as a result of the Trump administration’s actions, causing “irreparable harm,” McConnell said.

“Without SNAP funding for the month of November, 16 million children are immediately at risk of going hungry,” the judge added. “This should never happen in America. In fact, it’s likely that SNAP recipients are hungry as we sit here.”

Government lawyers moved for a stay of the order but McConnell denied the motion, requiring the full SNAP payments to be made by Friday.

UPDATE 6:15 pm ET: The Trump administration is appealing McConnell’s order.

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