A sign reading “We Accept (Food Stamps)” hangs in the window of a grocery store on October 31, 2025 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The Trump administration continued to push the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to overturn lower court decisions requiring the federal government to pay for the full benefits of a major food program, even as Congress appeared to be nearing the end of the record-breaking government shutdown.
Late Sunday, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Rhode Island federal judge’s order requiring the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay the full amount of November Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
On Monday morning, the top federal trial attorney said the Supreme Court The administration continued its appeal.
Later Monday, a Massachusetts federal judge upheld an order nullifying a USDA memorandum to states over the weekend asking them to “reverse” the full November benefits, while reprimanding the administration for causing confusion. The memo had left states unclear about how to proceed, and some refused to comply.
President Donald Trump and senior administration officials have resisted calls to fund November SNAP benefits during the shutdown that began Oct. 1. They argue that the USDA did not have the legal authority to make payments because Congress had not appropriated funds for the program for the fiscal year beginning that date.
That position was a reversal of the first Trump administration’s 2019 guidance and a shutdown plan that the department released on Sept. 30 and then scrapped, sparking multiple court challenges.
About 42 million people, about one in eight Americans, utilize SNAP. Monday marked the 41st day of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Trump’s lawyer asks Supreme Court for a recess
In an afternoon briefing following his morning briefing to the Supreme Court, U.S. Attorney General D. John Sauer largely reiterated the argument he made on Nov. 7 in an initial appeal to the Supreme Court.
Sauer said the courts cannot order the USDA to “loot” a child nutrition program fund that contains about $23 billion to cover a short-term shortfall of about $4 billion for SNAP.
He added on Monday that the orders from lower courts threaten to derail a Senate agreement to reopen the government, which is expected to be completed this week.
“Literally at the eleventh hour, these orders involve the federal courts in the final efforts of the political authorities to end this shutdown,” Sauer wrote. “But the answer to this crisis is not for federal courts to reallocate resources without lawful authority. The only way to end this crisis – which the Executive Branch is desperate to end – is for Congress to reopen the government.”
Sauer’s order came after Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson ordered The government announced overdue Sunday how it would proceed with the 1st Circuit’s order, giving the coalition of nonprofit groups and local government that filed the original lawsuit until 8 a.m. Eastern time to respond.
Massachusetts federal judge condemns USDA
At an afternoon hearing in Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani condemned the USDA’s demand Saturday night that states return approved funds, upholding an injunction blocking it from taking effect.
The Saturday evening memo called on states to “immediately reverse” measures providing benefits to people who utilize SNAP.
But the states have complied with a midday Nov. 7 memo from the same department official directing them to process all benefits in accordance with Rhode Island’s order, Talwani said.
“What you have right now is confusion of the agency’s own making,” Talwani said.
Keith Becker, who represented the government at the hearing, said the guidelines were intended to stop states from distributing benefits while the Supreme Court’s stay, issued overdue Nov. 7, was in effect.
Minnesota approved benefits after the Supreme Court decision, he said.
Talwani said he had provided no evidence of this.
Becker also said that Wisconsin, Oregon and Michigan had provided benefits between the time of Rhode Island’s order and the Nov. 7 order requiring states to provide benefits, but Talwani said they had complied with the Rhode Island court’s order.
The Saturday letter to the states was inappropriate, she added.
“It seems to me that the states acted quite sensibly in following your Nov. 7 guidance,” she said. “Even if there is a mistake here, the idea that the next step on Saturday night is a blustering order that they’re all going to be sued, and this and that – we’re trying to get…benefits for people who need food.”
She also said the administration appears to be using Americans who utilize SNAP as political leverage, pointing out that the administration refused to transfer reserve money from a fund that had enough reserves to remain solvent into the spring, even as the shutdown neared its end.
“You have chosen not to pay your benefits at this point, and it is hard to imagine that this will be used as anything other than leverage,” she said. “I understand it’s nice language to say it’s about child nutrition, but right now it doesn’t really ring true.”
Judgment of the Court of Appeal
Federal courts have issued a series of rulings on the matter since groups, cities and Democratic states sued overdue last month to force Trump to release November benefits.
The ruling overdue Sunday came from a three-judge panel of judges from the 1st Circuit, who upheld a Thursday order by U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. that the government forfeited its option to provide partial November benefits when it missed a Nov. 5 deadline set by McConnell.
The USDA had argued that it would be tough to make partial SNAP payments, something it had never done before. But there were no plans to prepare those partial benefits nearly a month after the closure, Judge Julie Rikelman wrote in the panel’s meeting Opinion.
“The records here show that the government sat idle for nearly a month, unwilling to make partial payments, while people relying on SNAP went without benefits for a week into November,” Rikelman wrote. “Given these unique facts, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion by requiring full payment of November SNAP benefits.”
The US Senate is expected to vote on a bill to end the shutdown on Monday evening. The measure is likely to pass after making progress in a key procedural vote on Sunday, but the House would still need to approve it and Trump would have to sign it before the government reopens. House members were told to begin returning to Washington.
Sauer noted in his Monday letter that the case would be moot if the bill were enacted.
Democrats blast court battle
Democrats in Congress have been relentless in their criticism of Trump’s efforts to block the November benefits from being paid out.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ top Democrat, Angie Craig of Minnesota, said government officials “simply do not care about America’s hungry children, veterans, seniors or people with disabilities.”
“Instead of helping hungry seniors and children, President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins illegally withheld food assistance from hungry Americans for weeks,” Craig said. “Now they are once again asking the Supreme Court to block states from feeding hungry residents. The Trump administration would rather preserve its own sense of power than protect the lives and well-being of hungry Americans.”
Republicans blame Democrats for the lack of benefits, which they say could have been avoided if enough Senate Democrats had voted with Republicans on a bill that would have temporarily reopened the government at current spending levels.
California Democrat Adam Schiff has “voted against funding SNAP 15 times,” the Senate GOP-X account wrote in response to a tweet from Schiff. “If he wants to fund SNAP, he should join the eight other Democrats who voted to reopen the government instead.”
All but three Senate Democrats voted against the measure in 14 consecutive votes. Most continued to reject Sunday’s 15th vote, but seven Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine voted with Republicans in favor of the government reopening bill, which also included three full-year budget bills and reinstatement of laid-off federal workers.
Those votes gave Republicans the wiggle room they needed to circumvent the Senate filibuster rule.
