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Democrats plan to sue over food aid as GOP splits on legislative patch

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Dozens of Democratic attorneys general and governors are planning to sue President Donald Trump’s administration Tuesday over its decision to not tap emergency funds amid the government shutdown to keep food aid flowing to 42 million Americans next month, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of a public announcement.

Trump officials concluded in a Friday memo that they cannot legally tap a $5 billion contingency fund for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program amid the shutdown to pay benefits in November. Some in the administration believe, with $9 billion needed to fund SNAP payments for the month, there is no time to distribute smaller payments to individual states.

Administration officials anticipated their legal determination would be challenged in court, Blue Light News reported last week, and there are no serious efforts underway at USDA to find other sources of funding, according to two other people granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. But some GOP lawmakers whose constituents would be clobbered by a first-ever lapse of federal food benefits, are pushing for some kind of patch to prevent that from happening.

Senate Republicans are divided over whether to vote on a standalone bill to keep SNAP beneficiaries — many of whom live in rural and Hispanic-majority Republican districts — from losing assistance. Many argue Democrats will be at fault if the Friday deadline barrels past with no fix as they continue to push Democratic senators to vote for the stopgap spending bill the House passed last month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune argued Monday the best way to fund SNAP was for Democrats to vote to reopen the government, though he said GOP senators would discuss the issue during their Tuesday policy lunch.

Republicans, for now, don’t believe Thune will put a SNAP funding carve-out to a vote this week, according to two senators and three aides granted anonymity to discuss GOP party strategy.

But a growing number of Senate Republicans — including some within Thune’s own leadership circle — are publicly saying Congress needs to fund SNAP whether or not Democrats relent on overall government funding, lest millions without food aid before Thanksgiving.

“Yeah, I would vote for that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said in a brief interview Monday about supporting a standalone SNAP bill.

Capito, who chairs the Senate GOP policy committee and whose constituents are heavily reliant on SNAP, said she didn’t want the program to lapse during the shutdown.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins and a handful of other Republican senators have signed on to a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to fund the program, and they are pushing for a vote this week.

Asked Monday if she wants the administration to allow SNAP to be administered in November, Collins replied, “I certainly do.”

Collins said she wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins last week and “strongly recommended that she use the $5 billion in contingency fees.” She said she hadn’t heard back from the secretary.

Republican and Democratic aides believe a SNAP carve-out would pass in the Senate, but bringing it up for a vote this week would require all 100 senators to agree to fast-track it to the floor.

Privately, Republicans fear allowing a standalone vote on food aid would relieve key pressure on Democrats and potentially prolong the shutdown. Passing it would also mean bringing the House back into session to send it to Trump’s desk, something Speaker Mike Johnson has been trying to avoid.

“If we could figure out a way to find something Democrats will vote for, we’d love to do that, but right now, we could fully fund the SNAP program by reopening the government,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said. “We could do that in 30 minutes from now.”

Asked if he would support a standalone SNAP bill, Mullin replied, “I would support opening the government back up.”

Calen Razor and Jordain Carney contributed to this report. 

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Congress

Republicans are growing tired of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s shutdown attacks

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is on the warpath against her own party’s handling of the government shutdown. And her fellow Republicans are increasingly calling her out.

The firebrand three-term lawmaker, long an ally of President Donald Trump, has distanced herself from Republican leadership in recent months. And as the shutdown drags on, Greene’s loud — and usually lonely — dissent risks fracturing Republicans’ efforts to present a united front and pressure Democrats into caving on funding the government.

“Don’t spend much time worrying about [what] Marjorie is saying,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.

While a few other Republicans have criticized the party’s approach to the shutdown, Greene has been the loudest and most prominent detractor. She’s focused on expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies — which Democrats have made their central demand — and accused her party of ignoring the issue.

“Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!” she wrote in a social media post in early October.

Republicans have continually indicated they’ll negotiate on health care premiums only after the shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson has tried to brush off Greene’s attacks and defuse the tension, telling reporters that GOP-led conversations on health care are happening in other channels.

“Bless her heart, that’s an absurd statement,” he told CNN when asked last week to comment on Greene’s assertion that the Republicans were “sitting on the sidelines” on health care.

Greene has only ramped up her critiques of the speaker and his team, with the shutdown now well into its fourth week, writing on X on Tuesday that Johnson “said he’s got ideas and pages of policy ideas and committees of jurisdiction are working on it, but he refused to give one policy proposal to our GOP conference on our own conference call.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) on BLN late Tuesday called on Greene to put her own health care plan forward — and to stop attacking her party.

“I like her, she came out to Ohio a few times,” he said. “She’s certainly able to write a bill herself. Like if this is something she’s passionate about, put pen to paper, write a bill. Present an option. Don’t just criticize what other people are doing.”

Greene’s disagreement with Republicans stretches beyond the shutdown. She broke party ranks by calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocidein July and was one of just a handful of Republicans to sign a discharge petition from Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that would force a floor vote on the Epstein files.

Greene’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the party, Cruz said, is moving on.

“Suddenly, Marjorie is for massive government spending and taxes and she’s for open borders and amnesty. Ok fine,” he said Wednesday. “That is not where the American people are. Where the American people are, is real simple. We’re on day 29 of the stupidest shutdown.”

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John Thune says he plans to meet with Democrats about ending shutdown

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday he expects to meet soon with a group of rank-and-file House Democrats about ending the 29-day-and-counting government shutdown.

If the meeting happens, it would be a rare bipartisan gathering involving a top party leader. So far this month, Thune and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have not met to discuss an exit path to the shutdown, leaving it to a small group of dealmaking members who have engaged in informal, on-and-off talks.

Those conversations have heated up in recent days, members of both parties say, as major ramifications bear down including the possible lapse of federal food aid for 42 million Americans.

“They’re looking for an off-ramp,” Thune told reporters.

“What I told them all along is, as soon as they’re ready to open up the government, that we will ensure that they have a process whereby they can have the chance to get their legislation voted on, their policies voted on,” he added. “I think they’ve become more interested, and I hope that’s continues.”

Thune made his comments after participating in an angry floor exchange with Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, who sought to pass a patch for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by unanimous consent.

The normally mild-mannered South Dakota Republican boiled over at points as he lambasted Democrats over what he called a “cynical” ploy to extend food assistance without fully reopening the government.

“You all have just figured out 29 days in that there might be some consequences,” he yelled.

Thune tried to offer the House-passed continuing resolution instead, but Luján objected, and Thune ultimately blocked the legislation.

“Sorry I channeled a little bit of anger there,” Thune told reporters leaving the floor, saying that allowing the SNAP patch to pass would extend the shutdown “another two or three weeks.”

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Government shutdown could lead to $14B in lost GDP, CBO reports

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The ongoing federal shutdown could cost the U.S. economy between $7 billion and $14 billion, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The report, prepared in response to a request from House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), estimated the economic impact of the shutdown if it lasts four weeks — a mark hit Wednesday — six weeks, or two months.

Under all three scenarios, the CBO expects economic growth to be back on track after 2026, but some of the real gross domestic product loss resulting from furloughs of federal workers will not be recovered. That permanent loss could be anywhere from $7 billion, if the shutdown were to end now, and $14 billion, if it were to drag on for an additional month.

The Trump administration has placed about 750,000 federal workers on furlough, and many more are currently working without pay, although their ability to claim back pay after the government reopens — a standard precedent under previous government shutdowns — appears uncertain.

The CBO also anticipates that real GDP will be anywhere from 1 to 2 percentage points lower in the fourth quarter of 2025 than it would have been if the government remained open.

“The effects of the shutdown on the economy are uncertain. Those effects depend on decisions made by the Administration throughout the shutdown,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel wrote in the report.

The economic impacts of the shutdown will also be exacerbated when the federal government ceases disbursements of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits beginning Nov. 1, per the CBO.

The Department of Agriculture, which administers the program in partnership with states, has decided not to tap emergency funds to keep food aid flowing amid the shutdown — a move being challenged by Democratic leaders of more than two dozen states.

While a resolution to reopen the government remains elusive, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told POLITICO on Wednesday that talks to end the shutdown have “picked up.”

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