Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on Friday acknowledged the federal government’s failure to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funded throughout the government shutdown, telling the 42 million Americans who rely on it, “We have failed you.”
“Your government is failing you right now. That poverty line is not red or blue, it is not a Republican or Democrat issue, doesn’t matter who you voted for or even if you voted,” Rollins said at a press conference with House Republican leadership, ahead of the Saturday deadline when funding for the program will lapse for the first time ever.
Quickly after that, Speaker Mike Johnson stepped in: “She means, ‘We the Democrats.’”
SNAP has become a primary point of contention in negotiations to reopen the government for both Democrats and Republicans. Across the country, states are scrambling to find solutions to avoid their residents going hungry because of the stalemate.
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“Secretary Rollins said one honest thing today: The government is failing the American people. Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House,” Rep. Angie Craig, the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, told NOTUS in a statement. “The Trump administration has the legal authority and funds necessary to get November SNAP benefits out the door. They are illegally withholding food from 42 million Americans, and it is shameful.”
The agency’s refusal to use contingency funds to keep the program partially running through November has been a focal point as the funding cutoff approaches.
At the press conference Friday, Rollins acknowledged that those funds exist. The administration is now arguing that it doesn’t have the authority to use the funds, despite an earlier plan outlining that they could be used in the case of a government shutdown. USDA took the plan down from its website.
“There is a contingency fund at USDA, but that contingency fund, by the way, doesn’t even cover half of [the amount that] would be required for November SNAP,” Rollins said. She argued that the funds are only “allowed to flow” if the funding for the program has been approved by Congress, noting that a “contingency fund” can only be made available in case of an emergency.
This argument has prompted a series of lawsuits across the country that argue the shutdown qualifies as an emergency. At least 24 states filed a joint lawsuit this week asking a federal judge in Massachusetts to step in and force USDA to partially fund SNAP through November.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani signaled that the court would likely intervene, reportedly saying, “It’s hard for me to understand how this isn’t an emergency when there’s no money and a lot of people are needing their SNAP benefits.”
A coalition of local governments, nonprofits and workers’ rights organizations, along with Democracy Forward, filed a lawsuit yesterday in Rhode Island against the Trump administration’s “unlawful suspension of SNAP.” The groups argue that “USDA unlawfully ended existing work-rule waivers, acted outside its authority, and failed to carry out what the law requires.”
“No one should have to wonder whether the government that exists to help them is instead harming them. We are taking this abuse of the public trust and an assault on the rule of law to court,” said Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, in a statement to NOTUS.
Johnson argued that these lawsuits were strategic attempts to create “talking points.”
“They know that’s a frivolous piece of litigation. They know they are going to lose, but they also know it’ll take many weeks or months,” Johnson said at the press conference.
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