OAN Staff Blake Wolf
9:23 AM – Friday, November 7, 2025
The Trump administration has turned to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to request an emergency stay in response to a judge ordering the federal government to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by today.
Friday’s emergency request comes after Rhode Island federal judge John J. McConnell Jr. ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to secure additional funds for SNAP payments, following the Trump administration’s announcement that it would only partially fund the program this month amid the ongoing government shutdown.
In the request, lawyers for the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that the ruling amounts to a “mockery of the separation of powers.”
“This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers. Courts hold neither the power to appropriate nor the power to spend. Courts are charged with enforcing the law, but the law is explicit that SNAP benefits are subject to available appropriations,” the DOJ argued in its filing.
“There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions,” it continued.
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DOJ attorneys went on to argue that McConnell’s order “thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations and may well have the effect of extending the lapse in appropriations, exacerbating the problem that the court was misguidedly trying to mitigate.”
In the order, McConnell gave the administration until Friday to comply, citing the immediate need for the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps to purchase groceries.
McConnell argued that the administration’s previously proposed plan to fund 65% of the food benefits for November did not account for the “practical consequences” that the reduced payments would have on low-income families.
McConnell’s ruling follows two previous federal orders last week, which required the administration to issue partial SNAP payments using the $5 billion contingency fund.
Additionally, Vice President JD Vance spoke out against McConnell’s ruling, arguing that it is “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.”
“What we’d like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government, of course,” Vance stated on Thursday. “Then we can fund SNAP and a lot of other good things for the American people. But in the midst of a shutdown, we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation.”
“The president will comply with the law,” he added. “But we’re also going to make the government work for the people in the best way we can.”
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