SCOTUS Sides With Trump On Food Stamp Funding During Shutdown

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with President Donald Trump late Friday night, temporarily blocking an order for the administration to somehow fully fund food stamps while Senate Democrats keep the government shut down.

The administration already planned to tap into emergency funds to partially pay out Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments to the tune of billions of dollars. Administration officials said it would be impossible to provide the remaining billions needed to fully fund the program without congressional action, noting that the shortfall was the fault of Congress, not the executive branch.

SNAP payments are made to a stunning 42 million Americans every month.

Judicial activism at its worst.

A single district court in Rhode Island should not be able to seize center stage in the shutdown, seek to upend political negotiations that could produce swift political solutions for SNAP and other programs, and dictate its own preferences for…

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) November 7, 2025

“Given the imminent, irreparable harms posed by these orders, which require the government to transfer an estimated $4 billion by tonight, the Solicitor General respectfully requests an immediate administrative stay of the orders pending the resolution of this application by no later than 9:30pm this evening,” the administration’s request said.

“Congress has failed to appropriate funds to pay for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for this fiscal year,” the request continued. “The Executive Branch has since exhausted the entirety of its SNAP contingency reserve, which amounted to over $5 billion. But that will be only enough to cover partial payments for the month of November. Such a funding lapse is a crisis. But it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure and one that can only be solved through congressional action.”

SCOTUS sided with Trump, and agreed to temporarily block the lower court order for now. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the stay.

More from the administration’s #SCOTUS filing over #SNAP benefits – putting blame squarely on lawmakers:

“Congress has failed to appropriate funds to pay for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for this fiscal year. The Executive Branch has
since…

— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) November 8, 2025

“The core power of Congress is that of the purse, while the Executive is tasked with allocating limited resources across competing priorities,” the Department of Justice argued. “But here, the court below took the current shutdown as effective license to declare a federal bankruptcy and appoint itself the trustee, charged with picking winners and losers among those seeking some part of the limited pool of remaining federal funds.”

As our Supreme Court brief puts it:

“The core power of Congress is that of the purse, while the Executive is tasked with allocating limited resources across competing priorities. But here, the court below took the current shutdown as effective license to declare a federal…

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) November 7, 2025

“The Supreme Court just granted our administrative stay in this case,” Attorney General Pam Bondi posted to X on Friday night. “Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda.”

The Supreme Court just granted our administrative stay in this case.

Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda. https://t.co/VJnf2GwPLk

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) November 8, 2025

Currently, the main webpage of the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that SNAP delays are due to Democrats, who have now voted 14 times to keep the government closed.

“Senate Democrats have voted 14 times against reopening the government. This compromises not only SNAP, but farm programs, food inspection, animal and plant disease protection, rural development, and protecting federal lands,” the USDA message reads. “Senate Democrats are withholding services to the American people in exchange for healthcare for illegals, gender mutilation, and other unknown ‘leverage’ points.”