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

After a judge's ruling requiring the administration to make a payment to fully fund SNAP for the month by Friday, Vice President JD Vance argued courts shouldn’t be allowed to direct the administration on how to "triage the situation" amid the government shutdown.

"It's an absurd ruling, because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown, which what we'd like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government of course, then we can fund SNAP, and we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people. But in the midst of a shutdown, we can't have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation," Vance said on Thursday night.

"We're trying to keep as much turned on. We're trying to keep as much going as possible, the president and the entire administration are working on that, but we're not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge. We're going to do it according to what we think we have to do to comply with the law, of course, but also to actually make the government work," he said.

-ABC News' Lalee Ibssa

The Senate is staying in tomorrow for a relatively rare Friday session. Majority Leader John Thune told members in a separate closed door lunch that he plans to put up, for a 15th time, a short-term funding bill that would reopen the government.

If Democrats provide 60 votes, there's a number of changes that senators are hoping to make to the bill.

The bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators who have been negotiating a way out of the shutdown are mulling over a number of modifications to the bill. Lawmakers are expected to attempt to change the date that the short-term extension of government funding expires to a yet-to-be-determined later day.

There's also been ongoing discussion about including a package of full-year funding bills in the short-term package that would insure certain programs, including SNAP and veterans programs, are funded through September.

That group has also been in discussion over language that might reverse some of the layoffs of federal employees that the Trump administration imposed as a result of the shutdown. This discussion, which is extremely preliminary and which has not been blessed be leadership, has also been about whether language to prevent future reductions in force could be part of the package.

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin, Rachel Scott and John Parkinson

Democrats met behind closed doors on Capitol Hill for another marathon lunch as the government shutdown continues to drag on. Senators were tight-lipped departing the discussion. It's still not clear what the path forward is.

A number of Democrats who were present for the lunch described the conversations, which focused on the government shutdown, as "productive." Several Democrats assured reporters that they were "unified" behind a position on the shutdown.

But asked point blank what it is they were unified over?

"I don't want to get into that," Democratic Sen. Gary Peters said. "But it was an encouraging caucus."

Peters wasn't the only Democrat who dodged questions about what, precisely, Democrats were unified on, so it's still extremely unclear if Democrats are ready to take an off-ramp toward ending this record-shattering shutdown. So far, only two Democrats and one independent have been consistently voting in favor of a bill that would temporarily reopen the government. That bill has come up for a vote 14 times now.

There's been a number of conversations between rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans about an addition that could be made to the bill to in some way make it more appetizing for Democrats who have, up until this point, been unwilling to advance the bill without assurances that expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits would be addressed.

Though there have been talks about other elements of the short-term funding bill, Republicans have been clear that they won't negotiate on health care until the government is reopened. There remains no offer from Republicans to address the health care tax credits, so it's still entirely unclear if Democrats have been thoroughly enough persuaded by any existing plan for at least the five more members necessary to advance a bill across the floor to vote for it.

-ABC News' Rachel Scott, Allison Pecorin and John Parkinson

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to make a payment to fully fund SNAP for the month of November by Friday.

"People have gone without for too long, not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable," said Judge John J. McConnell Jr.

Judge McConnell directly rebuked President Donald Trump for starting "his intent to defy" a court order by saying earlier this week that SNAP will not be funded until the government reopens.

"In fact, the day before the compliance was ordered, the president stated his intent to defy the court order when he said, 'SNAP payments will be given only when the government opens,'" the judge said.

The White House, after Trump's comments, insisted it was complying with the court order.

Judge McConnell criticized the Trump administration for only making a partial payment when it had additional emergency funds and knew the payments would not be delivered in time to comply with his court order.

"Without SNAP funding for the month of November, 16 million children are immediately at risk of going hungry," said Judge McConnell. "Children are immediately at risk of going hungry. This should never happen in America."

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous