Government shutdown updates: Senate vote marks step towards ending federal shutdown

Pressed by ABC News, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries brushed off the notion that Democrats -- who are withholding their votes on a clean government funding bill -- are in any way to blame for the lapse in critical SNAP food assistance.

"Wouldn't the easiest way to fund SNAP just be for Democrats to vote to fund the government?" ABC News Capitol Hill Correspondent asked Jeffries on Monday.

"No, the easiest way to fund snap is for the administration to do exactly what is done in so many other instances, including the administration finding $40 billion in order to bail out their right-wing dictator, wannabe friend in Argentina ... This is an intentional, vicious choice that Donald Trump and Republicans are making, and not a single American should go hungry, not a single American, and it's the fault of Republicans that that is happening in this country," Jeffries said.

Democrats continue to point out SNAP has never run out of funding in its 60-year history, including in past shutdowns. Jeffries demanded the Trump administration dip into the U.S. Department of Agriculture's emergency fund to help cover the program.

-ABC News' John Parkinson and Lauren Peller

Using emergency funds to pay for reduced SNAP benefits could take "a few weeks to up to several months," a top USDA official told a federal judge in a sworn court filing on Monday.

In addition to the delay, the Trump administration also said it was $4 billion short of the expected $8 billion cost to fund SNAP for the month of November, in part, because they are declining to tap an additional bucket of emergency funds held by the USDA.

"Defendants have worked diligently to comply with the Court's order on the short timeline provided by the Court and during a government shutdown," DOJ lawyers wrote in a filing on Monday, committing to spend $4.65 billion on SNAP.

The disclosure comes after a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay for SNAP amid an ongoing government shutdown by Wednesday. Following the court order on Friday, Trump said it would be his "honor" to fund the food assistance program.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous and Stephen Portnoy

House Speaker Mike Johnson, at a news conference on Monday, said he spoke with President Donald Trump on the lapse of SNAP benefits.

“He and I talked about this quite a bit over the weekend, multiple times. The president is desperate for SNAP benefits to flow to the American citizens who desperately rely upon it,” Johnson said.

"Everybody's on the same page here. We just don't know how. It's unprecedented. This has never happened before in this way, and so we're hopeful,” he said.

Johnson also dodged a question on eliminating the filibuster, bowing out of the renewed push by the president and calling it a “Senate issue” when asked if he’s aligned with Trump.

“This is a Senate matter. It has nothing to do with the House. Everybody wants to know who my opinion is,” Johnson said. “I mean, my opinion is irrelevant. I understand desperate times call for desperate measures. I also understand that traditionally we’ve seen that as an important safeguard.

-ABC News' John Parkinson

Tens of millions of Americans are now feeling the impact as federal food assistance halted over the weekend and travelers experienced chaos at major airports.

The Senate is back in town on Monday though no vote is currently scheduled on the Republican short-term funding bill. That bill would only fund the government until Nov. 21.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to make full SNAP payments by this afternoon or partial payments by Wednesday, writing that emergency funds "must be used now because of the shutdown." The administration has not commented on that order, but earlier Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted the quickest way to get SNAP funding to 42 million Americans is to reopen the government.

-ABC News' Justin Gomez