Bulwark Takes - Will SNAP's Collapse Force a Shutdown Resolution? (w/ Arthur Delaney)

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Arthur Delaney joins Sam Stein to break down what changed, why it matters, and what happens to 22 million households who rely on SNAP every month. In 2018, during the last Trump shutdown, the Trump administration moved fast to make sure SNAP benefits kept flowing, even paying out early to avoid families going hungry. Now, with another shutdown dragging on, millions of Americans are being told the money’s gone and the emergency fund is “too hard” to use.

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slash audio boom to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash audio boom. Everybody, hello, welcome back to the bulwark. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at this site. And I'm joined by Arthur Delaney, a friend of the bulwark, a repeat guest. We debated having him back on because he was so atrociously terribly wrong with this prediction about how long the government shutdown would last. It's true.

What'd you say? Three weeks? I said it would be three weeks, but there was a caveat, Sam, which was that I don't know. It's a reckless prediction because you asked me to make a reckless prediction. Well, either way, you were wrong. Yes, I was wrong. And I questioned whether to have you back. But we're going to give you another chance.

We're going to talk about actually serious topic, which is SNAP, the food assistance program that is expiring tomorrow the Congress and the administration are not, the Congress not passing a bill to release the emergency funds. The administration is saying it can't release the emergency funds. There is a court decision that could potentially impact this. But let's start even further back because Arthur, people should know this about Arthur. Arthur's been reporting on this stuff for as long as I can remember. He's one of the few reporters in Washington, D.C., who obsesses about this issue.

And so for the people who are not necessarily well-versed on this program, Arthur, tell us a little bit about SNAP and then we can get into the contours of the current issue at hand. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, it was called Food Stamps when it started in a pilot program after the Great Depression, and it's been just ramped up all through the 20th century to the point where nobody is starving anymore in the United States. 40 million people get benefits. I think it might be more accurate to think of it as 22 million households containing all those people. And it gives you about $3.50 a month to buy whatever you want at a grocery store. And so if you're poor or you lose your job, you become poor, you can quickly sign up for this.

It is one of the most responsive, most important economic programs that the federal government runs. And so it has never stopped before, and that's a big deal outcome of a government shutdowns. We've never had a government shutdown that went this long. And the last time we did, the Trump administration didn't let this happen, this time they will. So it's a very big deal. Yeah, I just want to emphasize this. There might not be, I mean, sure there is, but it's among the most successful public policy initiatives in our nation's history. It's helped almost eradicate hunger.

in America. And to your point, it's an incredible economic stimulus because if you're not having to spend your money on food, you can spend your money on things that are of other necessity to you. How big is this? You mentioned how big the program is, but how much does it cost the government roughly a year to administer SNAP? Oh, it's really big money. It's more than $100 billion a year right now. The cost went up a lot because of the pandemic. And then the Biden administration made a big increase permanent. So when Republicans talk about the increase in the cost of this program, they're right. And that's one reason. This is significant for the economy. It's $8 billion or $9 billion a month. And so having this money vanish will be a big deal, although we all expect that money to be put

back whenever the shutdown is resolved. So it's like a temporary problem that will eventually be resolved. That doesn't mean there won't be chaos for household food budgets in the meantime. Okay, so the current situation is that government shut down, it's been shut down for almost four plus weeks. There is a emergency fund within SNAP, as I understand it, but the people who administer SNAP, in this case, the Department of Agriculture, say they cannot access those funds. Is that a correct assessment of the situation? Yeah, and this is being hashed out in court. There's about $5 billion in the emergency fund, so it's enough to actually cover most of the November SNAP benefit. And they're just saying, we can't. It would be too technically difficult.

We have to reprogram everything to create partial benefits. We've never done that before. And then we'd have to switch it back. We don't know if it's legal. So they made this litany of arguments for why they can't do it. But obviously, that money's there for a reason. And they could if they wanted to, the Trump administration's moving around all kinds of money in questionable ways in order to make the shutdown not as bad for troops, for example, for certain federal workers. So this is a chance for Democrats to go on offense when they're the ones who have really precipitated the crisis by refusing to vote for government funding and holding out for Obamacare subsidies. So Democrats have said we're not going to reopen the government unless there's some resolution

on these expiring enhanced Obamacare subsidies. As SNAP is close now to basically expiring, What are the legislative attempts, not the legal attempts, to get those benefits back into law, even if the government is or remains shut down? So this week, Democrats in the House and on the Senate side introduced snap-only bills just to save snap. And also, Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican in the Senate, had a snap bill as well. These aren't being done at the leader level, so it's not like the party's strategy. and a Democrat in the Senate, Ben Re, Lujan from New Mexico, tried to get unanimous consent,

meaning like no vote, just approved my snap bill. And John Thune, the majority leader, came out and blocked him and made a big show out of it and saying, essentially, you guys are just trying to make the shutdown easier on yourselves by mitigating this one harm when really you have a responsibility to fund the whole government. So the politics of this are really mixed up. Usually Republicans, the Republicans actually spent all year. saying this program coddles single adults who play video games all day, and they cut it. They're kicking millions of people off the program over the next 10 years.

This was one of the big pay-for's in their tax cut bill. So everything is kind of mixed up and flipped around, and there's a lot of nuance. But definitely, even if they solved the problem today, there's going to be an interruption for a lot of people. Being an American right now is kind of a wild ride. Donald Trump and his administration keep testing the limits of American democracy from ICE deportations to environmental rollbacks and sweeping tariffs. The headlines come fast. But what do they mean for real people in their lives?

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You had a piece that noted that in the 2018 shutdown, the Trump administration did, in fact, elongate the SNAP benefits into a second month. And how do they do that? Was it use of the emergency funding or was it some other mechanism? So, yeah, the shutdown that Trump caused by demanding a border wall, they saw this second month snapcliff coming, and they said, no way are we letting that happen. And they didn't even go to the emergency fund. They just said, we're going to pay next month's benefits right now.

And so they sent the money out several weeks early. It was a real administrative feat, like a feat of programming, those systems that supposedly are so difficult, they can't do it this time. Yeah, and the government accounting, I at the time was like, why are you doing that? That's crazy, complicated. Why don't you just say this is a, you know, the law says these benefits have to go out. Why don't you just say, we're going to follow that law and go ahead and sue us? But they didn't, they did something more complicated.

And it was later ruled illegal by the government accountability office. You know what they said? They said, why didn't you just tap the contingency fund? It was right there. So here we are. and they have the contingency fund and they're refusing to tap it, but they also have not gone ahead like they did in 2018 and rushed the second month benefits out. Instead, they're saying the wells run dry, but there are a number of Democratic states, our state attorneys general, who have sued the administration saying, no, this is what the emergency contingency fund is for. We are literally in an emergency.

You have to spend this money. And they did get a fairly good ruling in their favor, a sympathetic ruling in their favor, or not a ruling, I should say sympathetic hearing in their favor yesterday. What exactly happened? Well, I mean, they just said what we went over. The money's there, pay the money for these reasons.

They also said you could look at the tariff money. You could move child nutrition money. There's plenty of it. And the administrations like you doing that would be risky. We'd have no money for disasters. Whatever. A judge sounded sympathetic to the Democrats. We're waiting on that ruling. And it would be, I think, an injunction that would require the government to pay the money. Even if they get that, it's not going to go out on its usual schedule because we're looking at this in a matter of hours. Let's talk about it right now. I'll just go into a note for the audience's benefit. We're recording this at like 1115 on Friday in the morning.

So it's possible that we get a ruling from that judge in between when we record this and we publish this. Also, I should note right before we recorded this, Brooke Rollins, who heads the U.S. Department of Vag Culture, was asked if the administration would respect a ruling requiring them to send out the SNAP benefits. And she said, she was noncommittal. She just said, we're going to look at all options. All right, so what happens tomorrow? Let's say, in theory, there's no ruling that comes between now and tomorrow. And let's just say in theory that they don't have to release the funds. They choose not to release the funds, even if there is a ruling. What happens for like real human beings who depend on SNAP?

So first of all, all these people, these 22 million houses have already been told no money for you because of the shutdown. and the USDA has been really aggressive. They say Senate Democrats have blown it. The well has run dry because they want transgender surgery. There's this insane statement on USDA.gov. So people are already going through whatever they're going to go through when they're told their food budget will be whatever fraction of what it normally is for them. Starting Saturday, millions of people will not receive the deposit on their EBT account,

which they use a debit card to use this money at a grocery store. Not everyone gets their benefits on the first of the month. It's staggered in every state, usually over the first 10 days. But some states, it's as late as the 28th. So it's possible that maybe there's a solution, and some people aren't affected by it at all. But definitely, definitely no matter what, a lot of people, millions of people are going to miss out on SNAP benefits

starting this weekend. And let's say they do have a resolution. be true. Let's say the judge comes in and says, no, you have to spend that money and the administration says, fine, we will spend the money. Can they like turn the spigots on and go through the systems in time so that no one misses any payments whatsoever? I think it'll be too late for nobody to miss it, but I have more faith in administrative capacity to get the money out than they are letting on in their response to the Democratic lawsuit. But I think the major impact of that, I mean, it would be great for people who need money to buy food, but I think that would have a major impact on the shutdown dynamic because this is by far, with troop pay off the table, this is by far the biggest thing that's coming. that's happening now. It's a lot of pressure point. Pressure point on both sides,

but especially on Democrats because you're trying to defend people from health insurance premium spikes. It's a similar number of people. 20 million plus households. But this is now. This is right now, not in January,

and it's clear why it's happening, whereas the other thing is a little bit more far off and theoretical. And so I had been thinking this could force a resolution next week. And if the court steps in and makes him pay the benefits, I would imagine that would reduce the pressure. For sure. I mean, the other outcome here potentially is that the court steps in says you have to do this. The administration says, we're going to appeal or we don't

agree with you and we're not going to do it. And then suddenly the administration's contention is that we're not legally able to tap this fund, but a judge told us we legally can tap this fund, but we're not going to legally tap the fund. It just doesn't make any sense. which I think is an actual outcome that could happen here. Last question, because you do talk to recipients every now and then. Like, let's get away from the technical and the legislative and the legal. Like, what are we talking about on a human level? Like, what is missing this mean for people?

Oh, it just sucks, man. I mean, it's actually really easy to imagine. And actually, people are talking about it all over local news stations around the country. Like, this story, even more than FAA, and flight delays. This one really breaks through because it's just not complicated. You get money every month for food. It can only be used for food. There's not really that much controversy. This program is popular, and it's stopping as a direct result of what people are doing in the U.S. capital. And so it pisses people off and potentially makes them hungry. I think the longer it goes

on, the more significant that becomes. It's not like this is anyone's entire food budget. I don't think you'd see any immediate starvation, but this is definitely a big deal. Yeah, well, listen, I'm going to take off the news had for a second and put on a personal high, which is that if you're watching this and the crisis has not or the standoff has not been resolved, do consider giving to a local food bank, especially at this time. They're doing God's work and they're feeding people who need it. So think about doing that. All right, Arthur, thanks a bunch, man.

I really appreciate you walking us through this. I do also encourage people to follow. his reporting because he is doing great work on the Snap Story. You can check him out at Huff Post. He's doing exceptional stuff there. So already appreciate you coming on the program. Appreciate everyone for watching. Subscribe to our feed too. You can't just plug HuffPost. Subscribe to our feed too. Talk to you later. Thanks for having me. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, all birds or skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind

the business making selling, and for the shoppers buying, simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not so secret secret, with shop pay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going... So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses

that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout skim's uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash audio boom. All lowercase. Go to Shopify.com

slash audio boom to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash audio boom.