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Government shutdown updates: Judge lays out path for SNAP benefits
The administration could use $5 billion in emergency funds and tariff revenue.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers remain at a stalemate on finding a government funding solution to end what is now the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history.
The Senate on Thursday adjourned until Monday afternoon, which will mark the 34th day of the government shutdown.
Meanwhile, a federal judge has laid out a path for the administration to fund SNAP benefits, which ran out on Saturday, saying the administration could tap more than $5 billion in emergency funds, as well as a much larger pot of tariff revenue collected by the Agriculture Department to fund the program.
Key Headlines
Judge says attempt to suspend SNAP benefits unlawful but declines to order funds be resumed
A federal judge in Boston ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to suspend SNAP funding is “unlawful” but declined to immediately order the program be funded.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani reserved judgement about whether to issue a temporary restraining order, instead asking the Trump administration to advise the court whether they would authorize reduced SNAP benefits for November. She ordered the Trump administration to answer her question about reduced SNAP funding by Monday.
“For the reasons stated below, Plaintiffs have standing to bring this action and are likely to succeed on their claim that Defendants’ suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful,” she wrote.
“Where that suspension of benefits rested on an erroneous construction of the relevant statutory provisions, the court will allow Defendants to consider whether they will authorize at least reduced SNAP benefits for November, and report back to the court no later than Monday, November 3, 2025,” she added.
-ABC News' Peter Charalambous
House cancels votes next week
The House will officially be out of session again next week amid the government shutdown -- scrapping votes for the sixth week in a row.
The lower chamber held its last vote on Sept. 19.
-ABC News' Lauren Peller
Thune remains against ending Senate filibuster
Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s position against eliminating the Senate filibuster has not changed, a spokesperson told ABC News Friday, after Trump on Thursday called on Republicans to go "nuclear" and eliminate the filibuster to pass the Republican funding bill and reopen the government.
“Leader Thune’s position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged,” spokesperson Ryan Wrasse said in a statement, after Thune ruled out the gambit earlier this month as a path to end the shutdown.
Thune has long stood firm in his position against abolishing the time-honored chamber procedure that requires consensus from 60 of the Senate’s 100 members to advance most legislation -- as recently as Oct. 10, saying that the legislative tactic has long "protected" the upper chamber from operating as a majority party monopoly.
-ABC News' Isabella Murray, Lauren Peller and John Parkinson
Johnson dodges question about Trump's request to end filibuster
Speaker Johnson was asked about Trump's social media post that called on Senate Republicans to end the filibuster to end the shutdown.
Johnson said that he saw the post, but didn't talk to Trump about it.
"What you are seeing an expression of the president's anger at the situation," he said. "He just desperately wants the government to be reopened."
The speaker reiterated that the filibuster is a Senate matter.