November 08, 2025 02:31 PM UTC

Trump's Hunger Games Screw Hundreds of Thousands of Coloradans

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• by: Colorado Pols

As 9NEWS reported last night, President Donald Trump’s refusal to fund SNAP food assistance benefits during the ongoing shutdown of the federal government, despite lower court orders to do so and initial moves the U.S. Department of Agriculture to comply with those rulings, was temporarily upheld by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson through the weekend, throwing plans by Colorado officials to make the funds available to the state’s 600,000 SNAP beneficiaries into limbo–resulting in further jeopardy and hunger for more of our neighbors and friends than we can bear to fully comprehend today:

Colorado is reporting that about 32,000 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients received full benefits for the month of November before a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Friday night temporarily blocked an order to fully fund the program.

Colorado Department of Human Services said earlier on Friday that it was working to get SNAP benefits for more than 600,000 Coloradans for the month of November…

And then the Trump administration yet got another SCOTUS lifeline:

After the ruling, the Trump administration quickly asked the Supreme Court to block the order to fully fund SNAP benefits. Hours later, the Supreme Court granted the emergency appeal to temporarily block the order, leaving millions of people without payments — including more than 560,000 Coloradans, the governor’s office said.

Even as the Trump administration was in court fighting not to fund the program, the USDA said in a memo to states that it was working to make funds available on Friday for full monthly SNAP benefits.

Acting on that guidance, 9NEWS reports that state officials notified SNAP recipients to expect their benefits within the next few days. But the payments were halted after the Supreme Court blocked the lower court’s order. That pause only lasts 48 hours so the lower court can rule again, but it has the effect of stopping the payment of food assistance that was already in many cases a week late. For millions of Americans who rely on these benefits to feed their families, this is an emergency situation. Kids going hungry for reasons they don’t understand, rent money spent on food, and a tipping point into snowballing financial destruction.

The blame this time is not on the single Democratically-appointed Supreme Court Justice who fielded the emergency request. It is the Trump administration who sought yesterday’s emergency stay after telling states that full benefits would be forthcoming. In a statement last night, Gov. Jared Polis called on the administration to drop these conflicting appeals and immediately pay out the full amount recipients were told to expect:

Since the Supreme Court’s order, Colorado has not received any new guidance from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Colorado is committed to providing SNAP payments as rapidly as possible, while adhering to the latest legal decisions and USDA guidance. The State is evaluating how best to proceed based on the status of current litigation and will have a further update as soon as possible. The fastest route for Coloradans to receive access to food benefits would be for the Trump administration to drop all appeals of the issuance of SNAP payments for the month of November.

“I am baffled to see the Trump administration continue to block SNAP food access for millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Coloradans, including children and seniors. Costs keep going up for everyone, and we hope either the American justice system works quickly to allow us to get funds out to hungry Coloradans as soon as possible, or the Trump administration drops its appeal. This episode of The Twilight Zone needs to end, and Americans deserve access to food. The administration should drop its appeal, which is creating chaos among states,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

The facts are very simple. Trump could cover the full SNAP benefit for November if he wanted to.

But Trump doesn’t want to cover the full SNAP benefit. Trump wants the suffering he is wilfully imposing on Americans who can least afford it to break Democratic resolve in the fight over health insurance premium subsidies. Trump is the one willing to let millions of Americans go hungry as a bargaining chip, just days after an election that should have been a wake-up call that voters have had it with Trump’s Marie Antoinette-with-nukes management style.

Every day this goes on, the hardship innocent people are being forced to endure at our own President’s whim is a compounding atrocity.