President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP after a pair of judges’ rulings required it to keep the food aid program running.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture had planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. It costs about $8 billion per month nationally.
Trump, meanwhile, says he ‘won’t be extorted’ by Democrats, signaling no end soon. During a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday, Trump said he would only negotiate on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies once the government is reopened. At that point, the slim Republican majorities in Congress will enable them to continue ignoring Democratic input.
The shortage of air traffic controllers amid the shutdown continues to lead to delayed flights into and out of the United States. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been warning that travelers will start to see more flight disruptions the longer controllers go without a paycheck.
The shutdown is triggering a wave of closures of Head Start centers where students — who come from low-income households, are homeless or are in foster care — will miss out on preschool, where they are fed two meals a day and receive therapy vital to their development. Some centers say they’ll close indefinitely, while others are staying afloat with emergency funding.
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Speaker Mike Johnson says restarting SNAP funds won’t be easy
The GOP leader said it’s “not as easy as pressing ‘go’ ‘send’ on a computer.”
Johnson, R-La., stood by his previous assessment that the Trump administration was unable to release contingency funds to ensure the food aid kept flowing over the weekend.
“Made sense to me,” he said during a morning press conference at the Capitol.
Now that courts have ruled that the SNAP funds must be released, he said the Trump administration is waiting for direction on how to do that.
House Speaker says Trump is ‘very passionate’ about ending filibusters
Rep. Mike Johnson says he spoke with the president multiple times over the weekend as the government shutdown is on track to become the longest ever.
Trump has repeatedly called on the Republicans to use their majority hold on the Senate to nuke the filibuster. GOP leaders are not interested in undoing the longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation, which serves as a check on majority power.
Democrats, now with a 53-47 Senate minority, are using the filibuster to block legislation to reopen government as they hold out for health care funds.
Johnson said that the filibuster, while frustrating, serves as an “important safeguard” both parties use to block measures they oppose.
“I obviously shared my thoughts with the president on that,” Johnson-R-La., said at his daily press conference.
Tech props up Wall Street as most stocks fall on discouraging US manufacturing report
Gains by Nvidia, Palantir Technologies and other companies developing artificial-intelligence were keeping the S&P 500 near its all-time high on Monday, offsetting declines in most other stocks following a discouraging signal on the health of U.S. manufacturing.
Treasury yields dipped after manufacturing contracted by more last month than economists expected. It’s “a reflection of continuing economic uncertainty,” according to Susan Spence, chair of the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing business survey committee.
“Wonder has turned to concern regarding how the tariff threats are affecting our business,” a chemical products manufacturer told the ISM’s survey. “Orders are down across most divisions, and we’ve lowered our financial expectations for 2025.”
“In general, business is really strained,” another manufacturer told the survey.
Largest EPA union says health care must be funded in deal to end shutdown
The leader of the largest union representing Environmental Protection Agency workers says any deal to reopen the government must include funding for healthcare.
Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, said Monday that “the very foundation of EPA’s mission is to protect human health. We cannot build a healthy nation while denying Americans the right to access affordable healthcare.’′
Chen’s statement puts the EPA union at odds with its broader national leadership. AFGE President Everett Kelley, whose union represents more than 800,000 government workers, said last week that it was “time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”
In statements issued separately, Chen and Kelley agreed that civil servants should not be used as political pawns in the ongoing standoff.
Judge finds ‘no credible evidence’ of uncontrolled protests, despite Trump claims
Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, barred federal deployments of the National Guard to Portland, Oregon until at least Friday, siding with the city and state against the Trump administration.
The ruling late Sunday followed a three-day trial in which both sides argued over whether protests outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building met the conditions for using the military domestically under federal law. Immergut said she would issue a final order on Friday due to the voluminous evidence presented at trial, including more than 750 exhibits.
▶ Read more about litigation over troop deployments
Voters get their say in 1st general election of Trump’s 2nd term
One year after Trump retook the White House and began dramatically expanding executive power, the Republican president figures prominently in state and local elections. More than half of the states will hold contests on Tuesday.
The results of those contests — the first general election of Trump’s second term — will be heralded by the victors as either a major repudiation or resounding stamp of approval of his second-term agenda. That’s especially true in high-profile races for Virginia and New Jersey governor, New York City mayor and a California proposition to redraw its congressional district boundaries.
▶ Read more about the major statewide and local races on ballots
Mamdani, Sliwa and Cuomo make final push for New York City mayor
New York City’s mayoral candidates are working to get voters to the polls on Tuesday, the big finale of the race to lead America’s biggest city.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa spent the final stretch campaigning at a frenetic pace.
Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, jolted the political world when he defeated Cuomo in the primary with an energetic campaign focused on making the city a more affordable place to live.
Early voting ended Sunday with more than 735,000 ballots cast. In the last mayoral general election, only 169,879 in-person early voting ballots were cast.
Judges mull legality of National Guard deployments in D.C.
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey deployed up to 300 Guard members to Washington, D.C., through the end of November to support Trump’s crime-fighting efforts. A civic organization, the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, said state law limits out-of-state deployments to certain purposes, such as responding to a natural disaster or another state’s emergency request. Morrisey’s office has argued the deployment was authorized under federal law.
While Trump issued an executive order in August declaring a crime emergency in the nation’s capital, the U.S. Justice Department says violent crime there is at a 30-year low. Within a month, more than 2,300 Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling under the Army secretary’s command. A federal judge has yet to rule on District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb ’s request for an order to remove them.
Judge considers Trump use of military in Memphis, Tennessee
Trump’s push to send the military into Democratic-run cities has unleashed a whirlwind of lawsuits and overlapping court rulings. The latest legal efforts include Monday’s hearing before Davidson County Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal in Nashville.
Tennessee Democrats contend in a lawsuit that Republican Gov. Bill Lee cannot deploy the Tennessee National Guard for civil unrest unless there is rebellion or invasion, and even then, it would require action by state lawmakers.
Trump announced in September that the National Guard would accompany authorities from a slew of federal agencies as part of the so-called Memphis Safe Task Force. Since their arrival on Oct. 10, National Guard troops have been patrolling neighborhoods and commercial areas, wearing fatigues and protective vests that say “military police.” The U.S. Marshals Service has tallied more than 1,500 arrests and thousands of traffic citations.
Trump predicts Democrats will capitulate to Republicans
“I think they have to,” Trump said during the “60 Minutes” interview. “And if they don’t vote, it’s their problem.”
With Senate Democrats now voting 13 times against reopening the government, insisting they need Trump and Republicans to negotiate with them first, Trump said Republican leaders should change Senate rules and scrap the filibuster.
“Republicans have to get tougher,” Trump told CBS. “If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want.”
Senate Republicans have repeatedly rejected that idea, arguing that requiring 60 votes to overcome any objections is vital to the Senate, and has allowed them to stop Democratic policies when they’re in the minority.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.