As the federal government shutdown extends and prevents SNAP from distributing funds to tens of millions of food insecure people across America, the Trump administration is in court appealing (successfully) a court decision that would compel it to pay the safety net benefits with contingency funds during the shutdown.
In Pennsylvania, where two million people — or one out of every eight residents — relies on SNAP funding, Governor Josh Shapiro ripped into the Executive Branch occupants as the state acted on a lower court order this week requiring the government to pay the benefits, an order that was stayed by the Supreme Court late on Friday.
(New York Times headline: “Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Trump to Curtail Food Stamp Funding.”)
Portraying the administration’s position as unconscionable, Shapiro asserted that “America has a President and a Vice President that don’t give a [expletive] about all Americans.”
With Trump, Shapiro said, “at least he’s transparent” about not caring. Yet Vance tries to play both sides, the Governor chides, posing as empathic while practicing a cut-throat politics.
(Note: Supporting Shapiro’s Trump characterization, the President himself said recently “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them,” which in practice means the 75 million Americans who voted for Kamala Harris are not part of the coalition Trump considers when making decisions. See: blue state federal funding cuts.)
Shapiro focused his more pointed criticism on Vice President JD Vance, calling inauthentic Vance’s claim to a deeply held Catholicism and ripping the VP for hypocrisy while portraying that the administration’s actions — forcing people to “go hungry” — as deeply at odds with the basic tenets of Christianity.
“I know my Bible,” Shapiro said, evoking a passage in Deuteronomy that dictates an open hand, not a closed fist, when encountering a person in need.
“(Vance) claims to be a person of faith,” Shapiro said, before describing the administration’s approach to the needy as antithetical to Catholic doctrine. Eviscerating Vance’s claim to genuine Catholicism, Shapiro said the Vice President is “literally” going to court “to stop hungry people from eating.”
Shapiro also ripped Vance for profiting “on the backs of people he likes to write about” in his book Hillbilly Elegy, many of whom use SNAP benefits, and then abandoning them in another self-serving move Shapiro describes as hypocritical. Vance’s actions, Shapiro said, are “not only phony, but shameful.”
Shapiro also slammed GOP Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), for his vote to “gut payments” supporting rural hospitals, an action that Shapiro says will result in the closing of 25 hospitals in Pennsylvania.
BREAKING: Governor Josh Shapiro just slammed Republican Congressman Rob Bresnahan for voting to cut Medicaid and SNAP funding. This is the fire we need. pic.twitter.com/qMXtTDWLOg
— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) November 7, 2025