'Absurd': JD Vance blasts activist Obama judge's apparent overreach on SNAP handouts amid Democrat shutdown

Vice President JD Vance blasted the apparent overreach by a meddlesome Obama-appointed judge who ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to make full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments for November despite Democrats' government shutdown.

A pair of Obama-appointed U.S. district court judges — Indira Talwani in Boston and John McConnell in Providence — ruled last week that SNAP benefits could not be cut off amid the Democrats' government shutdown.

McConnell ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday to resume the handouts either in full or in part "as soon as possible." Days later, the Trump administration announced that it would comply by exhausting $4.65 billion in contingency funds to make a partial payment that would cover roughly half of each eligible household's SNAP benefits for the month of November.

'This Court is not naïve to the administration’s true motivations.'

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, echoing President Donald Trump, emphasized on Monday that the administration doesn't want vulnerable Americans to suffer and is working to "get partial allotments to SNAP households" but that "it will take several weeks to execute partial payments." Rollins added that once obstructionist Democrats reopen the government, "FULL benefits can get to families without delay."

Democracy Forward, the anti-Trump outfit that is representing plaintiffs in the case overseen by McConnell, filed an emergency request on Tuesday asking the Obama judge to force the administration to fund SNAP benefits in full.

"Because it is now clear that due to Defendants' course of conduct, and by their own admission, undertaking a partial payment plan at this point cannot meet the Court's directives or adequately remedy the harm Plaintiffs are suffering, the Court should grant Plaintiffs' motion to enforce and should temporarily enjoin and compel Defendants to release the withheld funding, in its entirety, for November SNAP benefits," Democracy Forward said in its motion.

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Photo by FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images

McConnell proved more than willing to oblige the liberal outfit, ordering the USDA to make full SNAP payments to the states by Friday by utilizing available Section 32 funds in combination with its contingency funds.

The USDA previously indicated that it would not tap Section 32 funds — supplied by tariff revenues — because they are intended for Child Nutrition Programs, which feed at least 29 million American children and are distinct from SNAP benefits.

'We're not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge.'

"Section 32 Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP," the USDA noted in a court filing. "Using billions of dollars from Child Nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances."

McConnell cited some of Trump's recent social media posts — including his Tuesday suggestion that SNAP benefits will only be doled out "when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before" — as evidence of the government's "intent to defy" his Friday order as well as the supposed insincerity of the USDA's arguments against using Section 32 funds to make full payments.

"This Court is not naïve to the administration’s true motivations," wrote McConnell. "Far from being concerned with Child Nutrition funding, these statements make clear that the administration is withholding full SNAP benefits for political purposes. Such 'unjustifiable partisanship' has infected the USDA’s decision-making, rendering it arbitrary and capricious."

The Obama judge has previously faced criticism for what WJAR described as his "ties and massive contributions to Democratic politics."

Vance noted during a roundtable with Asian leaders at the White House on Thursday that "it's an absurd ruling because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown."

"What we'd like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government," continued the vice president. "Of course then we can fund SNAP, and we can also do 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."

Vance added, "We're trying to keep as much going as possible. The president and the entire administration are working on that, but we're not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge. We're going to do it 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 in the midst of the Democratic government shutdown."

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The Trump administration has appealed the Obama judge's ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

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