Saturday’s looming deadline to fund the government or risk more than 40 million people losing their food benefits is increasing pressure on both parties to end the government shutdown.
President Donald Trump returns to Washington on Thursday afternoon following a weeklong tour of Asia that saw him personally removed from the shutdown talks.
And though the Trump administration has bailed out a number of spending initiatives they say would be threatened by Democrats’ repeated voting down of a funding bill, including military pay and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, top administration aides say the president will not tap an emergency, $6 billion Agriculture Department fund to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program operational for some 42 million beneficiaries.
Though long railed against by Republican candidates and lawmakers as an area for fiscal clawback, SNAP participation is highest in perceived Republican states, not Democratic ones. According to the USDA’s 2024 data, four states and the District of Columbia had a household participation rate above 16%: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, and New Mexico. Several swing states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, all fell into the second tier for SNAP utilization, with rates ranging from 14% to 15.9%. Overall, 1 in 7 rural households nationwide participated in SNAP, compared to 1 in 8 for urban households.
The murky demographic dynamics of the SNAP program led political operatives on both sides of the aisle, granted anonymity to discuss possible 2026 implications, to privately voice concerns to the Washington Examiner about who will bear the responsibility for the current shutdown, rapidly approaching the longest in history, especially if SNAP payments are paused on Saturday as threatened by the administration.
One veteran Republican operative with close ties to the Trump White House told the Washington Examiner that “there’s a very real chance” that withholding SNAP benefits would “blow up” GOP hopes of holding on to their congressional majorities in November 2026.
Still, that person cautioned that they “wouldn’t put it past the president to swoop in and save the day,” either by reversing his decision to float SNAP or end the shutdown entirely, “as soon as he gets back in town.”
A second veteran GOP official, also with close ties to the White House, doubted that Trump would bail out SNAP the way he did for other programs earlier this month.
“It seems unlikely,” that person assessed. “He’s chosen to find money for the military but not SNAP.”
Three Democratic strategists voiced concerns to the Washington Examiner that, despite the relatively high percentage of SNAP usage in “Trump country,” the president will be able to sell benefit delays as being the “fault” of Democrats.
“I’ve learned, especially with Trump, to never be surprised by anything anymore,” one strategist joked. “But, even though this man is choosing to withhold food from millions of his own voters, he has them in the palm of his hand. We’re optimistic that months of worsening inflation, a steadily worsening economic outlook for next year — these people will start to see the light, but I’m not holding out too much hope.”
Publicly, the opposing political factions are sticking to the script, giving little indication that they plan to cave ahead of Saturday.
White House officials declined to comment on this weekend’s SNAP deadline, and a spokesperson for Trump’s Office of Management and Budget maintained to the Washington Examiner that the administration is not “legally” allowed to use the USDA’s emergency fund “to cover regular benefits.”
“Democrats chose to shut down the government knowing full well that SNAP would soon run out of funds,” the official said, noting that fulfilling SNAP payments from another alternative funding pool would claw resources away from WIC and other child nutrition programs. “It doesn’t have to be this way, and it’s sad they are using the families who rely on it as pawns.”
Adam Geller, a veteran Republican pollster who worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign and his super PAC in 2020 and 2024, suggested that SNAP delays and the shutdown as a whole are only politically dangerous for Democrats.
“Voters continue to see the truth, which is that this shutdown is driven by Chuck Schumer and Democrats,” he said in a statement.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), on the other hand, said Wednesday that the president and Republicans “can fund [SNAP] now, and they’re using these people as hostages, plain and simple.”
“Trump is weaponizing hunger,” Schumer declared at a press conference. “He’s turning millions of children and seniors and veterans into political pawns. He’s choosing politics over people, cruelty over compassion. And let’s be clear about this, they’ve been on a crusade. The Republicans have been on a crusade against SNAP all year.”
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Former Biden White House spokesman Andrew Bates gave an even more pointed assessment, telling the Washington Examiner that Trump’s SNAP overtures are “simply “all a big bluff.”
“They can’t outsmart the fact that Republicans are in charge of the White House and both chambers,” he said. “They can’t outsmart the fact that a big majority of their voters agree with Democrats on all of this. They also spent the year showing they do not care about legal restrictions on money. 90,000 dead children can attest. Jesus would be proud.”
