Vice President Vance pushed it back on Thursday federal court decision which directed the Trump administration to make full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments for November, arguing that the court should not tell the President how to spend the money during a government shutdown.
“This is an absurd decision because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what to do amid a Democrat government shutdown,” Vance said during a roundtable with Central Asian leaders at the White House.
“What we want to do is open up the government to the Democrats, then we can fund SNAP and we can do a lot of other good things for the American people,” Vance said. “But in the middle of a shutdown we can’t have a federal court telling the president how to manage the situation.”
US District Judge John mcconnell A few hours before this, on Thursday, the administration’s plan was rejected provide partial payment without tapping the additional funds, saying it failed to comply his previous order,
The Justice Department said it would appeal the decision, leaving the future of SNAP benefits in limbo for millions of Americans who rely on the program.
The Trump administration intends to completely cut SNAP payments to about 42 million Americans starting this month due to the government shutdown, which this week set a record for the longest in history. This led to two lawsuits that insist the benefits should continue.
Last week, McConnell ruled that the administration needed to eliminate, at a minimum, about $5 billion of SNAP contingency funds. But it was not enough to fully finance the November gains, which are expected to cost more than $9 billion.
The Trump administration has sought to shift the money to cover things like pay for members of the military and nutrition programs for women and infants. But he has indicated he will not be able to provide funding for SNAP, and the Transportation Department has said it will reduce the number of flights In view of the shortage of air traffic controllers at some airports during the shutdown.
Vance said the White House would consider funding some government operations amid the stress of the shutdown, but would do so “according to what we think we need to do to comply with the law, certainly, but also to actually make the government work for people.”
