A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to make a payment to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the month of November until Friday.
“People have been without money for too long, not making payments to them for even one more day is simply unacceptable,” said U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr.
Judge McConnell directly rebuked President Donald Trump for declaring “his intention to defy” a court order by saying earlier this week that SNAP will not be funded until the government reopens after the current government shutdown.
“In fact, the day before compliance was ordered, the president signaled his intention to defy the court order when he said, ‘SNAP payments will be made only when the government opens,'” the judge said.
McConnell ordered the government last Friday to use emergency funds. pay SNAP in time for the Nov. 1 payments to be made, but the administration pledged to only partially fund the program, saying they had to save the additional funds for child nutrition programs.
Justice Department lawyers, in a court filing Thursday night, said they intend to appeal Thursday’s order, as well as McConnell’s order last week requiring SNAP to be funded.
Vice President JD Vance responded to the ruling Thursday by saying, “It’s an absurd ruling, because we have a federal judge effectively telling us what to do in the middle of a Democratic government shutdown.”
“In the middle of a shutdown, we can’t have a federal court telling the president how he should classify the situation,” Vance added, blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
McConnell, in Thursday’s order, criticized the Trump administration for making only a partial payment when it had additional emergency funds and knew the payments would not be delivered in time to comply with his court order.
“Without SNAP funding for the month of November, 16 million children are immediately at risk of hunger,” Judge McConnell said. “Children are immediately at risk of going hungry. This should never happen in America.”
President Donald Trump speaks at the America Business Forum Miami, Nov. 5, 2025, in Miami.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
After the Trump administration pledged earlier this week to pay 65% of the typical SNAP amount by tapping into emergency funds, a group of nonprofits and local governments argued that partially funding SNAP was insufficient to comply with McConnell’s order.
“Given Congress’ failure to appropriate sufficient funds for November SNAP benefits and USDA’s compliance with both the statute and its own regulations regarding partial benefits, it cannot be arbitrary and capricious for USDA to refuse to attack an entirely different program, to the tune of billions of dollars, in the mere hope that Congress will address the resulting shortfall through the general appropriations process,” Justice Department lawyers responded in a court filing Wednesday.
McConnell originally gave the Trump administration the option of making a full payment by Monday or a partial payment by Wednesday, saying the government needed to “quickly clear” any potential delays to ensure SNAP benefits continued. Because they did not do so (acknowledging in their own court filings that payments could take weeks or months), the Trump administration did not comply with the court’s temporary restraining order, the judge ruled.
“For the court it is clear that the administration did not comply with this Court’s oral order of 10/31/25, or its written order of November 1, 2025,” McConnell said in Thursday’s order. “The court was clear that the administration had to make the full payment by last Monday or it had to ‘promptly resolve the administrative and clerical burdens’ that it described in its documents, but under no circumstances will partial payments be made later than Wednesday, November 5, 2025. “It’s clear the administration did neither.”
“By following the order, the government had an obligation to make full payment so that people across the country would receive their SNAP benefits immediately,” the judge said. “We have spent six days without the food that 42 million, 16 million children, need. Irreparable damage. “That’s what the court’s temporary restraining order attempted to resolve.”
Judge McConnell also directly criticized Trump for declaring an “intent to defy” the court’s order by stating that SNAP payments would not be funded until the government reopens.
A Justice Department lawyer argued that any delays in payments should be attributed to the states that administer the programs, not the federal government, which he said completed a partial payment.
“Your Honor, the government complied with the court’s order,” said Justice Department attorney Tyler Becker. “We stated on Monday night, when we filed the lawsuit in court, that… we resolved all the burdens for which the government is responsible according to regulations and statute.”
Kristin Bateman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, argued that the Trump administration was deliberately ignoring the court’s order to gain political influence. While the Trump administration argued that it was setting aside additional emergency funds for child nutrition programs, she called the claim “seemingly implausible” because the government has enough money to pay for child nutrition programs through June.
“[They] “They have not explained why they would choose to allow 42 million Americans, including 16 million children, to go hungry now, to protect against the extreme possibility that there will not be enough money in June to fund child nutrition programs,” he said. “What the defendants are really trying to do is take advantage of people’s hunger to gain partisan political advantage in the shutdown fight,” he said.
McConnell seemed to agree, chiding administration officials and Trump himself for “withholding SNAP benefits for political reasons.”
He said statements by Trump and other top officials “admitting to withholding all SNAP benefits for political reasons” directly undermine the argument that the government was saving emergency funds to pay for child nutrition programs.
McConnell said the administration’s argument that it did not want to tap into emergency funds to protect child nutrition programs was implausible and accused the Trump administration of “intentionally wrongly combining” funds. He noted that child nutrition programs are currently funded at least through May, while SNAP has already run out of money.
“Contrary to what the defendant claims, 29 million children are not at risk of hunger,” he said. “Transferring approximately $4 billion to fully fund November SNAP benefits would still leave $19.35 billion in Section 32 funding, enough to fully fund child nutrition programs through May and beyond.”
Judge McConnell blamed the Trump administration for doing “nothing” to alleviate the delays associated with a partial payment.
“USDA now can’t complain that it can’t get timely payments to recipients for weeks or months because states aren’t prepared to make partial payments,” he said, referring to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates SNAP. “USDA created this problem arbitrarily and capriciously by ignoring Congress’ mandate for contingency funds and failing to timely notify states.”
The judge said the Trump administration was causing “irreparable harm” by failing to ensure that millions of Americans received critical assistance.
“To be clear, irreparable harm means harm to families, the elderly, children and others that cannot be undone. The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overloaded and unnecessary suffering will occur,” he said.
Judge McConnell became one of the first federal district court judges during Trump’s second term to block a Trump executive action when he issued an injunction earlier this year against an Office of Management and Budget memo ordering a blanket freeze on all government spending. The administration later rescinded the memo.
McConnell, in rare public statements for a federal judge, recently said he had received six credible death threats directed at him in the wake of that episode.
