Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay partial food aid benefits
The Trump administration has said in a court filing that it plans to partially fund food aid for millions of Americans after two judges ruled last week that it must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits in November during the government shutdown.
This is per a snap updated from the Reuters news agency and I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
Key events
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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The Trump administration has said in a court filing that it plans to partially fund food aid for millions of Americans after two judges ruled last week that it must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits in November during the government shutdown. The administration laid out the US Department of Agriculture’s plan in a filing in federal court in Rhode Island at the direction of a judge who had last week ordered it to use emergency funds to at least partially cover November’s Snap benefits. While the administration said it would fully deplete the $5.25bn in contingency funds, it would not use other funding that would allow it to fully fund Snap benefits for 42 million Americans, which cost $8bn to $9bn per month.
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As the ongoing government shutdown enters its 34th day, Republican leaders maintain they have no plans to abolish the filibuster. Speaking to reporters today, House speaker Mike Johnson said his colleagues in the Senate saw the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate to end debate on a bill, as an “important safeguard” from the “Democrats’ worst impulses”. This, despite Donald Trump decrying the measure on social media, and in a recent interview with 60 Minutes. Johnson said today that the president is simply very “passionate” about this issue. “I think what you see in this debate – we’re having on our own side is a reflection of the anger that we feel, the real desperation that we feel, because we want the government to be reopened,” he added.
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As election day inches closer, candidates to be New York City’s next mayor spent the day traversing the city with eleventh-hour pitches to voters. Early voting in the closely watched mayoral race ended on Sunday. More than 735,000 New Yorkers cast their ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election. The Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, is still the frontrunner in the race, much to the ire of the president. In his 60 Minutes interview, Trump said that he’s “not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other”, but he would rather see the former governor – who is running as an Independent – win against the progressive assemblyman leading the polls. “If it’s gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” Trump said.
Watchdog for federal housing regulator set to be ousted – report
The inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is being removed from his role, according to Reuters. Citing three unnamed people familiar with the matter, the outlet reports that Joe Allen is being removed from his role overseeing the office responsible for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse at the FHFA.
Reuters also noted that the website for the FHFA’s Office of Inspector General listed the position as “currently vacant”. It was unclear when the website was updated.
In recent weeks, the agency’s leader, Bill Pulte, has made himself known as a loyal supporter of Donald Trump’s efforts to target those he sees as political adversaries. He’s accused Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, of mortgage fraud, and pushed the justice department to investigate New York attorney general Letitia James – who recently plead not guilty after being indicted on two charges of bank fraud, and making false statements to a financial institution.
In response, Elizabeth Warren – the top Democratic senator on the banking committee – issued a statement today.
“What happened to the watchdog overseeing his agency? What does Pulte have to hide as he continues to use his role to investigate President Trump’s perceived political enemies while failing to lower housing costs for the American people?,” the lawmaker representing Massachusetts said.
On election eve, New York mayoral candidates traverse the city
As election day inches closer, candidates to be New York City’s next mayor spent the day traversing the city with eleventh-hour pitches to voters.
Democratic nominee, and frontrunner, Zohran Mamdani, former governor Andrew Cuomo who is running as an Independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, all spent a jam-packed weekend attending campaign events and getting as much face time with New Yorkers as possible. A reminder that early voting, which ended on Sunday, saw a record high turn out throughout the city.
My colleague, Anna Betts, has been covering the latest on the ground. You can read more of her reporting below.
Richard Luscombe
The city of Miami’s mayor Francis Suarez is weighing in on Tuesday’s mayoral race in New York, with none-too-complimentary comments about Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate and frontrunner.
Suarez, a Republican, was speaking to reporters this lunchtime ahead of the two-day America Business Forum in Miami on Wednesday and Thursday, which Donald Trump will attend.
“New York seems to be on the precipice of electing a Democratic socialist, a young charismatic leader. But we’ve been to that movie before, here in Miami,” said Suarez, the termed-out, eight-year mayor whose successor will also be elected on Tuesday.
“In this city we’ve had young charismatic leaders that promised us, you know, ‘Give us all your businesses, give us all your property, we’ll make everybody equal’. And they did. They made everybody equally poor, equally miserable and equally repressed,” he said.
Suarez says the impact on Miami if Mamdani is elected will be significant, and he predicts an exodus from New York. “There’s going to be a 20, 30, maybe even 40% spike in demand and in real estate prices here in Miami, it’s an inevitable consequence,” he added. “I don’t have a border, you know, I can’t prevent people from coming.”
Trump is the headline speaker at the conference, which features luminaries from the worlds of politics, business and sport. They include sports stars Lionel Messi, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams; Javier Milei, the far-right president of Argentina; Steve Witkoff, Trump adviser and Middle East envoy; and María Corina Machado, winner of the 2025 Nobel peace prize that Trump was angling for.
As is customary during these dueling press conferences throughout the shutdown, each party continues to blame the other for failing to reopen the government.
Jeffries just called Donald Trump the “puppet master” of the Republican party, and said that GOP lawmakers refuse to negotiate due to their ongoing deference to the president.
Top House Democrat holds press conference on day 34 of government shutdown
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, is now speaking to reporters at the US Capitol. A reminder that the lower chamber is still out of session as the government shutdown enters its 34th day.
Further to that, the Trump administration said $600m would be used to fund states’ administrative costs in administering Snap benefits, leaving $4.65bn that will be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.
The partial payments are unprecedented in the program’s history. A USDA official warned in a court filing that at least some states, which administer Snap benefits on a day-to-day basis, would need weeks to months to make system changes that would allow them to provide the reduced benefits.
US district judge in Rhode Island John McConnell and another judge in Boston, US district judge Indira Talwani, said on Friday the administration had the discretion to also tap a separate fund holding about $23bn.
Patrick Penn, deputy under secretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services at the USDA, said in a court filing the agency was carefully considering using those funds but determined they must remain available for child nutrition programs instead of Snap.
Per my last post, the administration laid out the US Department of Agriculture’s plan in a filing in federal court in Rhode Island at the direction of a judge who had last week ordered it to use emergency funds to at least partially cover November’s Snap benefits.
The justice department said the USDA is complying with US district judge John McConnell’s order and “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of Snap contingency funds today”.
But while the administration said it would fully deplete the $5.25bn in contingency funds, it would not use other funding that would allow it to fully fund Snap benefits for 42 million Americans, which cost $8bn to $9bn per month.
Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay partial food aid benefits
The Trump administration has said in a court filing that it plans to partially fund food aid for millions of Americans after two judges ruled last week that it must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits in November during the government shutdown.
This is per a snap updated from the Reuters news agency and I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
Per that last post, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer quipped on social media today.
“Maybe I should file a complaint with the FCC against the Trump White House for editing his unhinged 60 Minutes interview,” the top Democrat wrote on X. “It will use the exact same language Trump lodged against Vice President Harris.”
Jeremy Barr
The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.
Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.
The edits are notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.
While many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.
At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing”.
Ahead of election day across the country, my colleague Carter Sherman, has been covering how reproductive rights will be back on the ballot in this off-cycle year.
Carter notes the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia could have sweeping consequences for abortion access in two states that have become havens for women fleeing abortion bans. In Pennsylvania, what should have been a relatively sleepy judicial-retention election has evolved into the most expensive race of its kind in nearly 50 years, largely due to heated fighting over abortion. With voters weighing whether to keep three Democratic justices on the state supreme court, advocates fear that liberals may lose control of the bench and, ultimately, lose abortion access in the purple state.
Read more of her reporting here.
As Trump decries filibuster, Johnson continues to defend it as important ‘safeguard’
When asked by reporters about the president’s insistence for lawmakers to abolish the filibuster, Mike Johnson said that he had spoken to Donald Trump over the weekend and shared his thoughts with him.
“I hear my Senate Republican colleagues, some of the most conservative people in Congress, who say it’s an important safeguard. It prevents us, it holds us back from the Democrats’ worst impulses,” Johnson said. “What would the Democrats do if they had no filibuster impediment, no speed bump at all?”
The House speaker added that he speaks “frankly and honestly” with the president and noted that he was very “passionate” about this issue. “I think what you see in this, this, this debate we’re having on our own side is a reflection of the anger that we feel, the real desperation that we feel, because we want the government to be reopened,” Johnson said.
House speaker says that issuing Snap contingency funds is ‘not as easy as hitting go send on a computer’
Mike Johnson has said that issuing payments to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) beneficiaries in the midst of the shutdown is “not as easy as hitting go send on a computer”.
In recent days, two federal judges ordered the administration to use the program’s contingency funds to pay to Snap recipients. Today, Johnson said this was more complicated than it looked.
“It costs over $9bn to fund Snap for a month, and we only have, I think it’s $5.2bn in the contingency fund. So you have a big shortfall,” he said. “You got to go through and recalculate partial payments to the 42 million recipients of the program.”
Johnson noted that the president was not appealing against the rulings from the respective judges. “He wants that to be done,” Johnson said. “But he doesn’t see the mechanism to do it. So you have treasury, you have USDA, you have the other agencies involved that are working overtime, literally around the clock over the weekend, trying to figure out how to do this. But everybody needs to know, it’s not the full amount, assuming they could get this done and processed.”
Johnson says ‘extremism on the left’ is the direct cause of American suffering
Throughout today’s press conference, Mike Johnson has continued to blame Senate Democrats for shuttering the government for 34 days. He, and many congressional Republicans, have claimed that the reason that lawmakers on the left have consistently rejected the House-passed funding bill is due to pressure from the progressive wing of the Democratic party.
“They fear that personally for their own political future,” Johnson said today. “And they care more about that than they care about Snap benefits flow into hungry families, about air traffic controllers being paid so they can keep the skies safe, border patrol, troops and all the rest … It is extremism on the left that is the direct cause of American suffering right now.”
In a short while, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will hold a press conference, on the 34th day of the government shutdown.
We’ll bring you the latest lines, particularly when it comes to reopening the lower chamber, as the shutdown is poised to be the longest on record (likely to beat the 35 days during Donald Trump’s first administration).
Trump says that he would reluctantly prefer Cuomo to win NY mayoral race
In an interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Trump said that he’s “not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other”, but he would rather see the former governor win against the progressive frontrunner and state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani to be the next mayor of New York City.
“If it’s gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” Trump said.
Early voting in the closely watched mayoral race ended on Sunday. More than 735,000 New Yorkers cast their ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election.
