A federal judge rebuked the Trump administration for defying his order issued last week to fully distribute SNAP payments by Monday, or at least partially by Wednesday. The administration had said it would release 65 percent of the funds but offered no timeline for doing so.
Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island sharply rebuked the Trump administration “for what he said was defying his order to make full SNAP payments by Nov. 5,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported on Thursday. “He has ordered USDA to make the *full* payment to states by tomorrow.”
“It’s likely that SNAP recipients are hungry as we sit here,” McConnell said, according to Cheney.
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The judge alleged that “Trump and his allies have admitted to withholding SNAP benefits for ‘political reasons’ rather than to preserve child nutrition programs, which the judge said was a pretext,” Cheney also reported.
Judge McConnell cited a Truth Social post President Trump made in which he vowed to hold up the SNAP funds. The President wrote that food stamp benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
The White House later walked back the President’s remarks, claiming he was referring to any future shutdowns.
The judge “said Trump’s Truth Social post was essentially an admission of his ‘intent to defy the court order,'” according to Cheney.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” McConnell said, according to the Associated Press. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial Snap payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
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