Vance calls court order to fully fund SNAP 'absurd ruling'

Vice President Vance on Thursday pushed back on a federal court ruling that directed the Trump administration to make full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments for November, arguing the court should not be telling the president how to spend money during a government shutdown.

"It’s an absurd ruling because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the middle of a Democrat government shutdown," Vance said during a roundtable with Central Asian leaders at the White House.

"What we’d like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government of course, then we can fund SNAP and we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people," Vance said. "But in the midst of a shutdown we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation."

U.S. District Judge John McConnell earlier Thursday rejected the administration’s plan to provide partial payments without tapping additional funds, saying it failed to comply with his previous order. 

The Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling, throwing the fate of SNAP benefits for millions of Americans who rely on the program into limbo.

The Trump administration had intended to fully cut off SNAP payments for roughly 42 million Americans starting this month because of the government shutdown, which this week set a record for the longest in history. That led to two lawsuits that assert the benefits must keep flowing.

Last week, McConnell ruled the administration, at minimum, was required to deplete a roughly $5 billion SNAP contingency fund. But it was not enough to fully fund November benefits, which are expected to cost upward of $9 billion. 

The Trump administration has sought to shift around money to cover things like pay for members of the military and a nutritional program for women and infants. But it has indicated it will not be able to provide funding for SNAP, and the Department of Transportation has said it will reduce the number of flights at certain airports in light of air traffic controller shortages during the shutdown.

Vance said the White House would look to fund certain government operations amid the strain of the shutdown, but would do so "according to what we think we have to do to comply with the law, of course, but also to actually make the government work for people."