Letters from an American - November 9. 2025

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

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November 9th, 2025, in order to pressure the Democrats to cave to Trump's demands that they sign on to the House Republicans' continuing resolution to fund the government, the administration has been refusing to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP benefits, that 42 million Americans depend on to eat. On September 19th, House Republicans passed a continuing resolution to fund the government. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, has kept the House from doing any work since then, sending members home in an attempt to force the Senate to pass the House measure. The Democrats don't want to. They have refused to agree to the resolution unless the Republicans agree to extend the premium tax credits that support the Affordable Care Act health care insurance.

markets. The end of those credits at the end of this year means that millions of Americans will lose their health care insurance and the premiums for others will skyrocket. It will be a blow to the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans want to get rid of. Snap needs about $8 billion for the month of November. There are two reserve accounts set up by Congress, one with about $6 billion in it that can be used to fund SNAP during emergency. and the other with about $23 billion to be used for nutrition programs. In past shutdowns, administrations, including the first Trump administration, tapped reserves to fund SNAP.

But in October, the administration said it would not use the emergency funds, essentially starving Americans to get Democrats to do as Republicans want and dramatically weaken the Affordable Care Act. Multiple groups sued. Food. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell of the District of Rhode Island ordered the administration to use the emergency reserves to fund SNAP at least partially and to consider using the nutrition money to fund it fully. The administration said it would use the reserve for partial funding, but that dispersing a fraction of benefits would create

an administrative problem that would take weeks or even months to sort out, delaying payments. Last Thursday, Judge McConnell found that the Trump administration had ignored his order to pay at least partial SNAP benefits last week and ordered the Trump administration to distribute the full amount of SNAP benefits for November to the states for distribution by the end of Friday. As Steve Vladic explained in one first, the administration appealed McConnell's order to the First Circuit and also asked the First Circuit to pull. the order while the Court of Appeals decided. When the First Circuit hadn't ruled by late Friday afternoon, the administration filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court to ask it to stay McConnell's order.

The emergency action fell to Justice Katanji Brown Jackson. Shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern, she issued the administrative stay the administration wanted, apparently getting ahead of the chance that the full court would overrule her if she declined to issue it. As Vlatic notes, she used her ruling to give the First Circuit a deadline to decide if it would permit the SNAP funding to go forward. Vladik writes that Jackson was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and he reiterates the obvious point that the Trump administration doesn't need a court order to pay out SNAP benefits. It could simply do it, as previous administrations have during a shutdown. In the back and forth on Friday, the administration appears to have opened up state payments for SNAP,

and several states received their full payments, while others did not. States that received full payments worked to get that funding through to beneficiaries' electronic benefit transfer or EBT cards immediately. Saturday, Patrick Penn, the Deputy Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, which overseas SNAP, sent a memo to the states saying that, to the extent states sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized. Accordingly, states must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025. Failure to comply with this memorandum may result in USDA taking various actions, including cancellation of the federal share of state administrative costs and holding states liable for any overissuances that result from the noncompliance. Yikes, economic editor at the bulwark, Catherine Rampel wrote. Astonishing how hard this administration is working to keep people hungry.

It's clear they are trying to maximize public suffering in hopes of getting people to blame Democrats for that suffering. But it's transparently the White House working overtime to keep the suffering going. Rampel asked Georgetown Law Professor David Super what it means for the states to claw back benefits they had already sent out. He answered that this seems to be USDA howling into the void after its terrible communications led many states to think that they were free to do what USDA should have told them to do all along. I do not see how USDA can do anything to the states, he wrote, since the error was not a system's error or mistaken issuance. He

speculated that the memo was an attempt to intimidate states that are considering issuing full November benefits. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, simply posted on social media, no. The administration also ratcheted up pain on the American people by warning that the ongoing crisis of unpaid air traffic controllers would cause more and more disruption to U.S. travel. The Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, has cut thousands of flights from the nation's busiest airports. And today, when Jake Tapper of CNN asked Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, how many Americans will not be able to be with their families for Thanksgiving because of this? Duffy answered, I think the number is going to be substantial.

Amid the fight over Snap, during the longest government shutdown in history, President Donald J. Trump spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, where he hosted another extravagant dinner party, complete with scallops, beef fillet, and ice sculptures. Today, as part of his defense of his tariffs, Trump promised on social media that a dividend of at least $2,000 a person, not including high-income people, will be paid to everyone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared to know nothing about the promise, but told ABC host George Stephanopoulos that the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms and lots of ways, including in the form of the tax cuts Trump and the Republicans have extended, the ones that primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations. Tonight, Trump attended an NFL

football game between the Washington commanders and the Detroit Lions, after ESPN reported that he wants the commanders to name their new stadium after him. Attendees soundly booed him. Today, former U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by President Ronald Reagan, explained that he resigned on Friday because he wanted the freedom to do everything in my power

to combat today's existential threat to democracy and the rule of law. Wolf called out Trump's use of the Department of Justice to hurt his political opponents, his firing of inspectors general, the administration's pay-to-play policies in which wealthy donors get government favors, the corruption of cryptocurrency,

unconstitutional executive orders, and the threats against judges as Trump attacks the rule of law. I resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations, and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy, Wolf wrote,

I also intend to advocate for the judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves. Because Wolf took senior status in 2013 and his successor was appointed then, his resignation will not create a vacancy for Trump to fill. Tonight, the news is swirling about Democratic senators agreeing to a deal to end. and the government shutdown.

But so far, the contours of such an agreement are not clear. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Thank you. Thank you.