(NEW YORK) — There is a paragraph on page 22 of the Trump administration’s appeal of a federal judge’s requirement that it make full November SNAP payments that has to be seen to be believed.
The opening sentence asserts that “the district court’s order threatens significant and irreparable harm to the government which outweighs any claimed injury to plaintiffs.”
In plain English, the Justice Department is telling the court that it would hurt the federal government more to comply with a judge’s order requiring full food stamp payments than it would hurt millions of low-income Americans to potentially starve.
Let’s simplify this further: the government is arguing that once the money is spent, it can’t be unspent (and that would be horrible). But the hungry can’t eat tomorrow (and that’s not as bad). That is the contention.
In a 40-page filing to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration insisted that being forced to spend money Congress has already appropriated is a graver injury than the hunger and disruption that would follow from withholding it. Friday night, the administration filed a nearly identical emergency stay request with the Supreme Court, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a temporary pause that will remain in effect until the circuit court issues a judgment on the matter.
At stake is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—SNAP—which provides monthly benefits to roughly 42 million Americans. During the ongoing government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) planned to fund only part of the November payments, prompting lawsuits from cities, religious groups, and nonprofits that argued that the administration was flouting its legal obligation to deliver full benefits.
Twice, a Rhode Island federal judge, John J. McConnell Jr., agreed, ordering the government to draw on existing accounts to cover the gap. Twice, the administration appealed, contending that the judiciary had usurped Congress’s spending power by directing the executive branch to find the money.
The Justice Department’s latest emergency filing makes that claim in even starker terms. It asserts that McConnell’s injunction “makes a mockery of the separation of powers” and that there is “no lawful basis” for forcing the USDA “to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions.” It also warns that by compelling compliance, the court has “thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations,” implying that judicial enforcement of basic statutory duties somehow exacerbates the fiscal standoff.
But what makes the filing remarkable is not just its tone—it’s the value judgment embedded in it. Traditionally, when courts decide whether to grant emergency relief, there is a calculus: the courts consider which outcome would cause greater damage, keeping the challenged policy on hold or letting it take effect? Here, the “policy” in question is the administration’s refusal to fully fund SNAP despite having ample reserves.
The Justice Department argues that the “irreparable harm” lies in being required to obey the court order and spend the money. By that logic, the government’s institutional discomfort outweighs the hunger of millions of families, seniors, veterans and children whose grocery money hangs in the balance.
Whether in disputes over public health, environmental regulation, or economic relief, the Trump administration’s lawyers have often equated executive prerogative with public interest—as though what benefits the administration necessarily benefits the nation. In this case, that conflation leads to the extraordinary claim that “the government” suffers greater harm by feeding people than by letting them go hungry.
The administration’s insistence that it “cannot” find the funds also rings hollow. By its own admission, the USDA controls multiple accounts with more than enough money to sustain SNAP for the month—including a $5 billion emergency reserve created by Congress specifically for that purpose. It has already drawn on similar pools of money to protect other nutrition programs from shutdown disruptions. The problem, in other words, is not fiscal incapacity but political choice.
The Justice Department’s appeal thus functions as both legal brief and ideological statement. It asks the courts to privilege administrative convenience over human need.
If that argument succeeds, the precedent would reach far beyond SNAP. It would signal that any time a court orders the government to meet a statutory duty—to pay benefits, deliver services, or enforce protections—the executive may claim “irreparable harm” merely because it prefers not to act. That is not separation of powers; it is the substitution of political preference for law.
Judge McConnell, for his part, put the matter bluntly: “This should never happen in America.” He was referring to the spectacle of a federal government choosing to let its citizens go hungry while pleading poverty amid abundant reserves.
The Justice Department’s legal arguments transform that spectacle into doctrine.
James Sample is an ABC News legal contributor and a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University. The views expressed in this story do not necessarily reflect those of ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.
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