Money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program "will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before," Trump had earlier stated on social media. This might potentially violate a court ruling directing the administration to restore funding.
“The administration is fully complying with the court order,”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.
Following US District Judge John McConnell's decision that the agencies should use emergency funds to pay for food stamps, the administration has been announcing in court filings and public statements for the past two days that it will at least partially fund the program this month.
“I just spoke to the president about it,” Leavitt told reporters when asked about Trump’s post.
“It’s going to take some time to receive this money because the Democrats have forced the administration into a very untenable position.”
Although Trump did not specifically state in his tweet that he was changing his mind, a White House official's refusal to provide clarification early Tuesday caused even more misunderstanding.
“We are digging into a contingency fund that is supposed to be for emergencies, catastrophes, for war — and the president does not want to have to tap into this fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to in his Truth Social post,”
Leavitt said.
Democrats had seized on Trump’s post to question whether the White House was planning to defy the court and reverse the administration’s plans to comply.
“Even for Trump, this is an outrageous step forward in terms of illegal behavior,”
said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
In a court filing the day before, the Justice Department stated that the administration was making "diligent" efforts to adhere to a decision made last week by McConnell, a judge from Rhode Island, which mandated that officials at least partially pay SNAP.
According to the document, the Agriculture Department, which oversees the program, intended to "deplete" $4.65 billion in contingency funds and give beneficiaries half of what qualified households typically receive in November. Additionally, it cautioned that recalculating benefits would take a lot of time.
Additionally, the president's remarks followed requests from towns and organizations for McConnell to force the administration to pay for food aid programs in full rather than just using the remaining contingency funds. For November, it would cost between $8 billion and $9 billion to fully support the SNAP program.
Due to Republicans' inability to secure enough bipartisan support to enact a temporary spending plan, the federal funding lapse is about to become the longest in US history. Although the GOP controls both houses of Congress, the proposal to reopen the government must pass the Senate after a number of Democrats vote for it to pass procedural obstacles.
Trump "must comply with recent court orders to fund SNAP in November for millions of hungry seniors, children, veterans, and the disabled," according to a statement from Representative Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the USDA Committee.
Democratic leadership has stated that an extension of health insurance subsidies that are about to expire must be part of any budget plan.
Court decisions that reinstate benefits have angered some Republicans, who claim they relieve Democrats of pressure to rescind their demands. According to official data, SNAP payments are received by 22 million households and more than 42 million individuals nationally.
How much of SNAP will be funded and who is affected?
The Trump administration has committed $4.65 billion from SNAP's contingency fund to incompletely cover the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for roughly 50 of eligible homes in November 2025.
This amount will pay out half of the usual yearly benefits to around 42 million Americans who calculate on SNAP, leaving the other half without benefits for this period. The backing will completely exhaust contingency reserves and won't cover new SNAP aspirants certified in November, disaster backing, or give a buffer for unborn months.
Most affected are low- income American homes, including numerous families, children (who represent about 39% of donors), and individualities reliant on food backing to meet introductory nutritive requirements. States like California, Texas, and New York have the loftiest number of SNAP donors.