We're going to spend some time now focusing on what these delays and cuts in food aid mean for Americans at both the national and the local level. Let's start with the national picture. For that, I'm joined by Cindy Long, former Deputy Undersecretary of the USDA's SNAP program. Welcome. Thanks for being here. I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Let's just start with your reaction to the latest here. Federal judges say that freezing SNAP payments is unlawful. The Trump administration says it will restart

those payments but only paying people half the amount they normally get. What's your reaction to that?

Well, I'm certainly glad that the administration is going to comply with the court order and utilize all of these contingency funds that are available and have always been understood to be available to FundSnap. But as we learned, there's not enough

there to cover the full month of November benefits. So, and there will be some, you know,

challenges getting these out as timely as possible given the delay that occurred because of

the decision not to use them. So it. So it is certainly good to have some benefits flowing,

but I think we need to be thinking immediately about what happens next.

What does happen next for people getting half the amount they normally get

and explain to us why that delay in terms of what funds are going out

and how it ends up on people's charges?

Sure. Well, in a normal process, the federal government provides funds.

Every month, the states run their data systems and create a giant file with all the information that's needed to issue benefits.

They turn that over to a processor and the benefits go on the cards.

That usually happens well in advance of the first of the month.

It didn't happen this time. So now what needs to happen is fns will release the funds quickly and give states some direction about how to reduce them because of the limited funds they're going to have to rerun everything to get that reduced level into the system the states will have to do that each at their own level the states will each have to do that at, again, at this reduced level. So they're going to have to redo whatever work they've already done, work with their contractors and get them out. And I think states, state systems vary in their nimbleness and how quickly they can respond. So I think we'll see varying timelines across the country. We've seen the federal government find funds, shift funds from one pot to another.

Could they be, should they be doing that in this case to make whole those SNAP beneficiaries?

Well, I think the answer is they could and they should have.

USDA does have another source that they can tap, and that has been available for a while.

It's an account that funds the school lunch program and other child nutrition programs.

And because of the nature of those funds, it is fairly cash rich right now.

And USDA has the ability to move funds from that account over to SNAP to help bridge the gap.

They said today that they weren't planning to do that.

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