President Trump said food benefits will only get paid once the shutdown ends, in a post on Truth Social Tuesday morning.
Why it matters: The post appears to defy two federal courts that ruled last week the White House must pay at least partial Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits even in a shutdown.
- Some 42 million Americans rely on SNAP to feed themselves, a majority are children or adults over age 60.
- This is the first shutdown to ever disrupt SNAP payments, which are a critical anti-poverty program.
Zoom in: "SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden's disastrous term in office," Trump said on Truth Social, "... will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government."
- At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration is fully complying with the court order, but recipients need to understand that it will take time to receive money.
- "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."
Reality check: There was a big increase in SNAP spending and enrollment during Trump's first administration.
- When COVID-19 hit, unemployment spiked and food bank lines wrapped around city blocks. His administration and Congress expanded emergency allotments for the program.
By the numbers: Expenditures on SNAP jumped to $128 billion in 2021 from $93 billion the year before, per the USDA's data.
- The number of recipients also grew to 41.6 million from 39.9 million.
- The SNAP rolls kept increasing for the next few years before declining slightly, along with expenditures, in the final year of the Biden administration.
- Federal spending on SNAP also declined every year from 2021 to 2024.
Context: The Biden administration updated SNAP to account for how much money the USDA believed it costs to purchase a nutritious meal at minimal cost.
Where it stands: On Tuesday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the White House to respond to a demand that it pay full SNAP benefits by end of day Wednesday.
- The administration said on Monday it could take weeks or longer to comply with the court's order to pay at least partial SNAP benefits because states would need to reconfigure payment systems.
- After Trump's latest post, Skye Perryman, the president of Democracy Forward, one of the plaintiffs in the case, posted: "This is immoral. See you in court."
The big picture: The situation is "heartbreaking," says Carolyn Vega, the associate director of policy analysis at Share Our Strength, an anti-poverty nonprofit.
- "These are families who count on SNAP benefits to feed their families, and the vast majority of them are working families," she says. "They don't necessarily have time to go stand in a long line in a food pantry or a food bank."
- And food banks do not have the resources to replace what SNAP provides.
- The federal government has the money to fully fund benefits, says Vega and other policy experts — and that would be a far simpler and quicker process.
Editor's note: This story was updated with additional details throughout.
Axios' Julianna Bragg contributed reporting to this story.
