USDA Threatens Stores Giving Discounts to People on Food Stamps

The Trump administration’s freeze on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds during the government shutdown is forcing many struggling Americans to make hard decisions about feeding themselves and their families. Now the administration is even restricting how much grocery stories can help. 

After several food delivery apps and grocery store chains sought to offer discounts to those whose SNAP benefits were interrupted or delayed, the Department of Agriculture sent an email to stores across the country warning them that they weren’t allowed to offer discounts to people hurt by the cuts to the food stamp program.

MSNBC anchor Catherine Rampell posted a screenshot of the email on X Sunday, and reported that at least two stores withdrew their discounts after receiving the email. At issue is SNAP’s “Equal Treatment Rule,” which bars stores from either discriminating against people in the program or offering them favorable treatment.  

On Friday, two federal courts ruled that the Trump administration has to use contingency funds to pay for SNAP, but the government has yet to respond with how it intends to comply, leaving the program’s 41 million recipients in limbo as assistance ended on Saturday, the first day of November. And food retailers in low-income areas may themselves be hurt, as much of their customer base now can’t afford to shop. 

In the meantime, the government shutdown has now lasted more than a month and is nearing the 35-day record set by the first Trump administration from December 2018 to January 2019. Not only are many federal workers furloughed or in danger of losing their jobs but health care subsidies are also on the chopping block. It seems that Republicans are not concerned about the survival of much of America. 

As millions of Americans lose paychecks and SNAP benefits due to the ongoing government shutdown, Bernie Sanders urged Democrats not to back down in an op-ed in The Guardian Saturday.

Sanders positioned the shutdown as a standoff not between Republicans and Democrats but between a power-hungry president and the working families of America.

“This may be the most consequential moment in American history since the Civil War. We have a megalomaniacal president who, consumed by his quest for more and more power, is undermining our constitution and the rule of law,” Sanders wrote.

He also clarified that, unlike what Republicans say, this shutdown is not the Democrats’ responsibility to end. “In order to fund the government the Republican majority must negotiate with Democrats to move the budget forward. This is what has always happened—until now. Republicans, for the first time, are simply refusing to come to the table and negotiate.”

Speaking to his Democratic colleagues, Sanders wrote that he understands the pressure they’re under from constituents, but that they can’t forget that Republicans are receiving the same calls. “There is a reason why 14 Republican members of the House are on record calling for the extension of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. Understandably, Republicans do not want to go home and explain to their constituents why they voted to double or, in some cases, triple healthcare premiums.”

But ultimately, Sanders wrote, what Democrats do next is bigger than a policy fight.

“If the Democrats cave now it would be a betrayal of the millions of Americans who have fought and died for democracy and our constitution. It would be a sellout of a working class that is struggling to survive in very difficult economic times. Democrats in Congress are the last remaining opposition to Trump’s quest for absolute power,” he wrote.

“The choice is clear,” Sanders concluded. “If the Democrats stand with the American people, the American people will stand with them. If they surrender, the American people will hold them accountable.”

Masked immigration officers in Chicago reportedly crashed into a woman’s car, pointed guns at her, dragged her out of her car by her legs—and then didn’t charge her with anything, The Chicago Tribune reported Monday.

As Dayanne Figueroa, a U.S. citizen, attempted to drive past a chaotic scene in West Town on Friday, an unmarked car collided with hers, according to multiple videos reviewed by the Tribune. Pedestrians had been yelling while drivers honked their horns to alert passerby that federal agents were making immigration arrests.

Federal agents exited the unmarked vehicle and trained their weapons on Figueroa. Agents forcibly opened her car door and pulled her out of her car by her legs, dragging her through the street. They did not identify themselves or tell her that she was under arrest.

Bystanders shouted: “You hit her! We have it on video!” Figueroa was then forced into a minivan and driven away, where she says she was transported to multiple undisclosed locations and denied the opportunity to contact family or legal counsel. Hours later, she was released without charges.

Figueroa’s family was not alerted to her arrest and only discovered she’d been taken by law enforcement after seeing a video of the crash on social media. Her mother said Figueroa had had kidney surgery in August, making the way agents threw her on the ground extra concerning. Figueroa’s family eventually was able to determine she was at the ICE processing center in Broadview, a suburb of Chicago, by pinging her iPhone location.

“I was in shock and terrified,” Figueroa told the Tribune. “The video evidence is clear: Agents crashed into me. I was not involved in any protest or related activity, and I intend to seek justice for how I was treated.”

In a statement to the Tribune, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, claimed that Figueroa was part of the group demonstrating as immigration officers conducted arrests, and had “[struck] an unmarked government vehicle” as agents departed.

“In fear of public safety and of law enforcement, officers attempted to remove her from the vehicle. She violently resisted, kicking two agents and causing injuries. This agitator was arrested for assault on a federal agent,” McLaughlin said.

For what it’s worth, McLaughlin’s statements justifying horrific ICE arrests have ranged from missing essential details to contradicting witness testimony and straight-up lying about every single detail of an arrest.

Daniel Hogan, a witness who recorded the collision and contacted police after Figueroa’s car was left empty in the middle of the street, said it wasn’t surprising that Figueroa had fought back. “Of course she resisted,” Hogan told the Tribune. “She did nothing wrong. They never told her why they were taking her. They came at her with guns. She was scared.”

Figueroa was among several Chicago residents detained by federal law enforcement Friday for allegedly interfering with operations.

President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago has now stretched to its seventh week, as federal agents continue to terrorize the city’s residents—both citizens and noncitizens alike. Last month, ProPublica reported that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including 20 children.

FBI Director Kash Patel can’t believe that Americans don’t want him shuttling his girlfriend across the country with taxpayer money.

Last week, Patel was caught using a $60 million government jet to visit his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, at a wrestling event at Penn State. The jet owner’s listed address, according to its FAA registration, is the FBI’s national headquarters in Washington. After Penn State, the plane’s flight log indicates it flew to Nashville, where Wilkins lives.

In a wordy social media post Sunday, Patel condemned press coverage of his latest scandal, deriding legacy media outlets as “uninformed internet anarchists,” while arguing that his girlfriend effectively deserved the multimillion-dollar airlift at taxpayers’ expense since she’s a “true patriot” and a “rock-solid conservative.”

“The disgustingly baseless attacks against Alexis—a true patriot and the woman I’m proud to call my partner in life—are beyond pathetic,” Patel wrote. “She is a rock-solid conservative and a country music sensation who has done more for this nation than most will in ten lifetimes. I’m so blessed she’s in my life.

“Attacking her isn’t just wrong—it’s cowardly and jeopardizes our safety. My love of family will always be my cornerstone, and you will never tear that down or keep me from them,” the FBI director continued, apparently claiming that any criticism of his government-funded spending habits as a top federal official is tantamount to harassment.

“I and this FBI will stay laser-focused on our mission and continue the reform we promised—rebuilding this Bureau from the ground up,” Patel said. “And to our supposed allies staying silent—your silence is louder than the clickbait haters.”

Since news of Patel’s pricey weekend fling went national, the FBI has forced FlightAware, a site that monitors international air traffic via publicly available information, to stop keeping tabs on Patel’s plane.

Patel also axed Steven Palmer, a 27-year veteran of the FBI responsible for overseeing the bureau’s air fleet, despite the fact that it was Wilkins who proved Patel was at the Penn State event by posting a string of photos to her social media accounts.

The entire situation is a bit of a hypocritical development for the former podcaster, who used to regularly chastise government officials for needless spending before joining the Trump administration. He relentlessly hounded the financial behavior of the man who previously filled his shoes—former FBI Director Chris Wray—even arguing in 2023 that the FBI should “ground” Wray’s private jet “that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country.”

Meanwhile, the government has been shut down for more than 33 days, making it the second-longest federal closure in U.S. history. It’s only bested by a 35-day shutdown between 2018 and 2019 that occurred during Donald Trump’s first term.

The administration allowed SNAP benefits for more than 42 million Americans to expire on Saturday, thousands of federal workers have gone weeks without pay (not FBI agents), Affordable Care Act marketplace credits have lapsed in several states, and Trump is moving forward with building a $300 million ballroom partially bankrolled by several defense and surveillance contractors.

Donald Trump thinks his violent immigration raids haven’t gone far enough, and wants to escalate.

In the president’s interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, correspondent Norah O’Donnell asked Trump about the images coming from Chicago, where federal agents including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol have been assaulting suspected undocumented immigrants as well as protesters, using tear gas, and smashing car windows.

“Have some of these raids gone too far?” O’Donnell asked.

“No, I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama,” Trump said. When O’Donnell asked him if he was OK with the heavy-handed approach, the president was dismissive, claiming that many of the people apprehended are murderers and criminals.

Even Halloween didn’t damper immigration enforcement in Chicago, with Trump’s shock troops out in full force. Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was rather nonchalant when asked about the possibility of federal agents traumatizing children just trying to trick-or-treat.

Federal agents in Chicago have dragged people out of their cars, shot religious leaders with pepper balls, and threatened to shoot protesters with live ammunition. Not only could this be a preview of what Trump plans to do with other cities that he dislikes (and that are run by Democratic mayors of color), but it seems that he doesn’t think this level of cruelty is enough.

Funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program isn’t rocket science. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is sure trying to make it seem like it is.

During CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, host Jake Tapper asked Bessent about rulings from two federal judges who ordered the Trump administration to obey the law and use emergency funds to pay SNAP benefits during the government shutdown.

“When can we expect the Trump administration to make these payments?” asked Tapper.

“Well, President Trump just Truthed out that he needs to hear from the courts how this is gonna be done, and Jake, as you know, the best way for SNAP benefits to get paid is for five democrats to cross the aisle and reopen the government,” Bessent said.

Tapper noted that the administration could simply dip into the contingency funds as outlined in USDA’s Lapse of Funding Plan—which was removed from the agency’s website in September. The Trump administration has since cited a USDA memo published in August that inexplicably claimed that SNAP contingency funds could not legally be used to cover regular benefits.

Bessent claimed that Trump was “very anxious” to resume SNAP benefits but insisted “it’s gotta go through the courts.”

“The courts keep jamming up things. Democrats are in the middle of a civil war. And they should just open the government; that is the easiest way to do this,” Bessent said.

“Is the administration going to appeal the ruling by the judge—is that what you mean by the courts need to weigh in? Because the courts have weighed in,” Tapper asked.

“No, but there’s a process that has to be followed. So we gotta figure out what the process is. President Trump wants to make sure that people get their food benefits,” Bessent replied, again urging Democrats to reopen the government.

On Friday, Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that the two courts had issued “conflicting” rulings and that his administration was seeking “appropriate legal direction.”

“Even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out,” Trump wrote. “If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding, just like I did with Military and Law Enforcement Pay.”

U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order requiring the Trump administration to dip into the USDA’s contingency funds. He added that the administration must deliver a plan for how it planned to pay for SNAP benefits by Monday at noon. Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston did not issue a temporary restraining order, and gave the Trump administration until Monday to decide how to pay at least partial SNAP benefits.

While the two rulings were slightly different in their approaches, they both suggested the Trump administration dip into emergency funds. And each day the government delays in distributing funds prolongs the absence of essential food aid.

In a filing Friday, the Trump administration said it was “expeditiously attempting to comply” with McConnell’s order. “Clarity as to the Court’s ruling is critical to ensure that Defendants can comply with the Court’s order while avoiding an operational collapse,” DOJ lawyers wrote.

President Donald Trump desperately tried to pivot the conversation away from his tanking economy in an interview with 60 Minutes Sunday. When probed by Norah O’Donnell about grocery prices, Trump first flailed, before outright lying.

When the president brought up the stock market, O’Donnell pointed out that many Americans may not feel the effects of market growth in their wallets: “When the stock market is doing well, that doesn’t affect everybody. Not everybody is invested in the stock market—”

“It does,” insisted Trump. “Oh it does, it does.”

O’Donnell pushed ahead, observing, “Grocery prices are up.”

Trump ignored her, choosing to instead over-exaggerate the growth of 401(k) retirement savings accounts. O’Donnell, not taking the bait, tried again to get the president to answer her question: “But for people that don’t have 401(k)s, who are not invested in the stock market—they’ve seen their grocery prices go up.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Trump responded. “They went up under Biden, right now they’re going down. Other than beef, which we’re working on.”

In reality, grocery prices are not down—they’re up. Grocery prices are 2.7 percent higher than they were last September and 1.4 percent higher than January, when Trump triumphantly returned to office. They’re also still on the rise, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last Friday. Overall, grocery prices have increased almost 30 percent in the last five years.

Though this is far from the first time that Trump has lied on camera, pretending that grocery prices are down is particularly egregious. The president campaigned on lowering prices, and has lied repeatedly about the fact that his nonsensical tariffs and cruel mass deportation campaign—which targets many of the people who grow and harvest our food—have hurt consumers.

Meanwhile, Trump is gilding the Oval Office and building a ballroom. At least he’s not out of touch!

Donald Trump is using an imaginary list of “wars” he’s solved to silence questions about his untenable relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The president refused to answer questions about why Putin was dragging his feet on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine during a sit-down interview with 60 Minutes Sunday. Instead, Trump pulled a propaganda-packed sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket to illustrate just how successful he thinks he’s been at solving international crises.

“So why won’t Putin end this war?” asked host Norah O’Donnell.

“But, Nora, that was Joe Biden’s war, not my war. I inherited that stupid war,” Trump responded, 11 months into his own presidency.

“But I brought just a little list of, look at this, wars,” Trump said.

Trump has touted himself for months as a great peacemaker, pushing a narrative that he has—so far—solved eight foreign conflicts. He has claimed responsibility for inventing peace between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda, between Cambodia and Thailand, between Israel and Iran, between India and Pakistan, between Serbia and Kosovo, between Egypt and Ethiopia, between Armenia and Azerbaijan (although he has previously forgotten and said Albania instead of Armenia), between Israel and Gaza, and for “doing the Abraham Accords.”

But as Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan pointed out in September, practically all of Trump’s war-solving braggadocio is “demonstrably untrue” to the extent that several of the listed examples were never even at war.

“And you have branded yourself the peace president,” O’Donnell continued.

“Well I think I did pretty good, I solved eight of the nine wars I solved, you know how I solved them? I said, in many cases, in 60 percent, if you don’t stop fighting I’m putting tariffs on both of your countries and you’re not going to be able to do business in the United States,” Trump said.

“So why isn’t that working with Putin?” pressed O’Donnell.

“Uh, it is working with Putin, I think,” Trump said.

Trump has conceded quite a bit to the Russian dictator, to no avail. This summer, Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska, marking Putin’s first return to U.S. soil in more than a decade. After the theatrics were over, the two world leaders still failed to reach a consensus on how to end the bloodshed, with Trump losing his cool while Putin demanded that Ukraine cede more territory to Russia.

More than 13,300 civilians have been killed and 31,700 injured in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, according to a United Nations report from June.

CBS’s 60 Minutes aired an exclusive interview with Donald Trump on Sunday, but the news magazine cut out a contentious portion regarding the president’s pardon of a cryptocurrency billionaire.

Trump’s televised interview was only 28 minutes long, with CBS also releasing a 73-minute extended cut online. But neither video contained Trump’s full answer after interviewer Norah O’Donnell asked the president about people he pardoned, specifically Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

“I don’t know who he is,” Trump said about Zhao, despite the pardon coming just last month. “I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that, and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”

O’Donnell pointed out that the Trump family had formed a cryptocurrency business with the Witkoff family, World Liberty Financial, and that after being pardoned, Binance struck a $2 billion deal with the Trump’s business. O’Donnell then asked Trump if he was “concerned about the appearance of corruption.”

Trump’s full response was missing from video posted online but was in CBS’s published transcript.

“I can’t say, because—I can’t say—I’m not concerned. I don’t—I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, ‘Can I ask another question?’ And I said, yeah. This is the question …” Trump replied, going on to dodge the question and touting cryptocurrency.

“We’re No. 1 in crypto in the whole world,” Trump said. “Other people wanna be. They’re fighting like hell to be. But we’re No. 1 in crypto because I’m the president.… We are No. 1 in crypto, and that’s the only thing I care about. I don’t want China or anybody else to take it away. It’s a massive industry,” Trump said.

It’s telling that the video of this portion of the interview is nowhere to be found online, especially considering that CBS’s parent company, Paramount, reached a $16 million settlement with Trump in July over a frivolous lawsuit where Trump claimed an interview with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, was deceptively edited. There’s also the right-wing shift the company has taken following Trump allies Larry and David Ellison’s takeover of Paramount.

Trump even hinted as much in another portion of the interview that was conveniently left out of posted or televised video, saying, “And actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you.”

“But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me—a lot of money because they took [Harris’s] answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”

The Heritage Foundation is facing a staff rebellion over its president, Kevin Roberts, expressing support of Tucker Carlson following his softball interview with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.

After Carlson posted his interview online on Monday, many conservatives urged the foundation to distance itself from the conservative commentator due to Fuentes’s racist and antisemitic views. Fuentes is the founder of the Groypers, a group of internet trolls that praises Hitler as well as white and Christian nationalism.

Instead, Roberts released a video on X Thursday in support of Carlson and Fuentes, calling the former “a close friend of the Heritage Foundation” and saying that “canceling” Fuentes is not the solution, even though he personally abhors what he says. In response, Heritage staff members—including Heritage research fellow Preston Brashers and Richard Stern, the director of Heritage’s economic policy institute and federal budget center—have started criticizing Roberts on social media.

At least a handful of Heritage staffers, including Jason Bedrick, Jay Greene, and John Peluso, also retweeted Brashers’s post. Other conservatives, including Senator Ted Cruz and influencer Bethany Mandel, have also criticized Roberts. The backlash led to Roberts making a follow-up post on Friday condemning Fuentes’s views but reiterating his view “that the best way to fight antisemitic ideas was to challenge them head on.”  

“Our task is to confront and challenge those poisonous ideas at every turn to prevent them from taking America to a very dark place. Join us—not to cancel—but to guide, challenge, and strengthen the conversation, and be confident as I am that our best ideas at the heart of western civilization will prevail,” Roberts’s post read.  

However, Roberts’s continued support of Carlson’s interview of Fuentes, which failed to challenge the neo-Nazi, exemplifies how today’s conservatives seem to be normalizing such views. Giving people like Fuentes a platform in conservative media creates the impression that their point of view deserves to be heard, and gives them a path to become part of the MAGA movement and the Republican Party. 

Earlier this month, the leak of a group chat full of Young Republicans supporting racist and Nazi beliefs caused a similar divided reaction from Republicans in which some, including Vice President JD Vance, defended the participants. Today, it seems having Nazi views is not a dealbreaker for mainstream conservatism.