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‘Stop playing politics’: Democrats rip court-extended pause to SNAP funding

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Democrats are railing against the Trump administration after its temporary Supreme Court win paused an order that would’ve required providing full funding of SNAP benefits amid the government shutdown.

The temporary victory came late Friday night, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson granted the administration’s request to pause a lower court order that would have required it access a separate nutrition account at the Department of Agriculture to provide full SNAP benefits for millions of Americans — leaving the fate of SNAP funding hanging in the balance for now as the government shutdown careens into its sixth week.

“The Trump administration is begging the Supreme Court to block an order requiring them to immediately release SNAP benefits,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on X on Friday. “Meanwhile. Millions of hungry Americans are at risk of starving. These extremists are sick people.”

Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) also decried the pause, suggesting that Democrats would push back on the added delay to funding the program.

“Let’s be very clear,” Clark wrote on X, “Trump is making a choice not to feed hungry Americans. Democrats will be fighting back.”

“The Trump administration will go to any length — including appeal to the highest court in the land — if it means they can cut off food for hungry people,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on X on Friday. “What is wrong with them?”

The White House referred a request for comment to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB did not immediately respond.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — which serves more than 40 million Americans — ran out of funds Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown. The Trump administration has continued to lock horns with Democratic governors and state leaders in a flurry of litigation seeking to resume funding SNAP.

The Department of Agriculture was slated to send out monthly allotments for November that are 65 percent of the typical maximum allotments, according to a memo the USDA sent to state agencies Wednesday. As of Saturday, it is unclear whether those allotments have been carried out as prescribed in the memo.

But Democratic state leaders have continued to urge the administration to tap into a separate Agriculture Department account, called Section 32, to renew funding to the program.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced Friday that SNAP recipients in the Bay State could begin receiving their full benefits as early as Saturday. On Saturday morning, she said that the planned payments for families who went without earlier benefits were successfully sent out but that officials are reviewing what the latest pause means for recipients expecting benefits next week.

“President Trump’s cruelty knows no bounds,” she wrote on X.

Healey called on the president to “stop playing politics with people’s lives and pay full SNAP benefits for everyone.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul — who also said she directed state agencies to fully fund SNAP benefits for November — took to X on Friday, saying the administration “fought for” the decision to delay the payments.

“He doesn’t care if millions of Americans go hungry,” she said.

The Trump administration has said it doesn’t have the funds needed to restore full SNAP payments amid the ongoing shutdown. Officials argue that directing additional funds toward SNAP would pull money away from funding child nutrition programs.

“Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X after the temporary Supreme Court win.

Votes to reopen the government have failed in the Senate 14 times, with the most recent failing 54-44, shy of the 60 votes needed to pass the House-approved continuing resolution to reopen the government. No new Democrats have crossed the aisle to support the motion as they continue to hold out for an extension to health care subsidies.

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Congress

House Republicans eye next week for housing bill vote

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House leadership is eyeing the week of Feb. 9 for a vote on a bipartisan housing package, according to four people with direct knowledge of the planning.

Senior lawmakers have also been mulling whether to consider the widely supported bill under suspension of House rules, which would expedite passage of the legislation, said three of the people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

However, plans for the bill are not locked in and could be subject to change as the House deals with a partial government shutdown.

The Housing in the 21st Century Act, which overwhelmingly advanced through the House Financial Services Committee in December, is part of a push by Congress to pass legislation that could address a growing housing affordability crisis. The bill includes 25 provisions that aim to increase the housing supply, modernize local development and rural housing programs, expand manufactured and affordable housing, protect borrowers and those utilizing federal housing programs, and enhance oversight of housing providers.

House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said Friday that he’s pushing for the Housing for the 21st Century Act to receive a floor vote expeditiously.

”I hope that that bill can come to the House floor in just a few days. I really am pushing for that, I think it’s the right decision,” Hill said on Bloomberg Radio.

The Senate’s housing bill, the ROAD to Housing Act, passed the upper chamber as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act but may be put to a separate floor vote. If the House is able to pass its own version by a wide margin before the Senate, it could have additional leverage for negotiations with the upper chamber for a final bill. Hill and other House Republicans have said the Senate bill, which received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate Banking Committee, has a number of provisions that would not be acceptable among House GOP members.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton now agree to testify before Congress

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Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an Oversight aide said Monday evening.

It’s a remarkable reversal for the former president and secretary of state, who were adamant they would defy committee-issued subpoenas and risk imprisonment by the Trump Justice Department as the House prepared to vote Wednesday to hold them both in contempt of Congress.

After both skipped their scheduled depositions earlier this year, the Oversight Committee voted on a bipartisan basis in January to approve contempt measures for each of them.

Although both have said they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, they have maintained that the subpoenas were not tied to a legitimate legislative purpose, rendering them invalid. They also complained the GOP-led exercise was designed to embarrass and put them in jail.

It is not immediately clear when they will appear and if the House will continue to pursue the contempt votes.

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Top House Democrats split on funding vote

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Senior House Democrats are going in different directions on a massive funding bill headed to the House floor as soon as Tuesday, underscoring the sharp divisions inside the Democratic ranks on the $1.2 trillion spending package.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Monday she would vote for the funding package when it goes to the floor Tuesday — breaking with a large swath of colleagues who oppose the measure over its extension of Homeland Security funding, including immigration enforcement operations.

“I will support this package,” DeLauro said during Monday meeting of the Rules Committee. She noted it secures funding for the five-full year, bipartisan bills and extends funding at current levels for DHS for 10 days.

DeLauro said without the DHS stopgap Democrats “won’t be able to bring the kinds of pressure” necessary to make changes to the full-year DHS bill they’re negotiating with the White House.

But Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, said he was dead-set against the bill due to the DHS funding.

“I will not vote for business as usual while masked agents break into people’s homes without a judicial warrant, in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” he said.

Neither leader, however, is expected to vote for a key procedural measure setting up a final debate and approval for the massive bill, which passed the Senate on Friday. That measure, known as a rule, is also expected to tee up contempt-of-Congress votes on Bill and Hillary Clinton over their decision not to fully cooperate in a Oversight Committee probe into Jeffrey Epstein. GOP leaders are scrambling to build support for that measure as some in their ranks agitate for amendments, including the attachment of a partisan elections bill.

“Republicans have a responsibility to move the rule, which, by the way, includes a wide variety of other issues that we strongly disagree with,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Monday.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

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