The Trump administration warns the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps feed more than 40 million people, will start to run out of funds Nov. 1.  

Administration officials and congressional Republicans say Democrats, by opposing the GOP’s stopgap spending bill, are threatening undue harm to some of the nation’s poorest people. At least two dozen states are planning to cut off coverage when the funding expires. 

A big question looming over the debate remains how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the agency that oversees SNAP from Washington, intends to manage the program in the coming weeks. 

The Trump administration has selectively funded certain programs and agencies in questionably constitutional ways that aim to help their allies. So far, there’s no indication that will happen at the USDA. 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins warned last week that the department lacks the funds “to provide SNAP for 40 million Americans come Nov. 1.” 

But the USDA has not clarified whether it intends to tap a SNAP contingency fund to pay benefits during the shutdown. That fund currently contains between $5 billion and $6 billion, according to advocates and congressional aides who monitor the issue. 

That money would allow for partial payments to help defray grocery costs through the shutdown. Advocates also say the administration could use its legal transfer authority to supplement the contingency reserves, a strategy the administration has already used to pay military personnel and fill a shortfall under a separate federal nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC.