The House GOP’s much ballyhooed investigation into former President Joe Biden’s alleged cognitive decline has largely ended with a thud.

In a new report released Tuesday morning, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Republican majority claims to have found evidence that senior Biden White House aides “exercised the authority of the former president” and concealed signs of Biden’s mental deterioration. In fact, the probe concluded with the need for answers to more questions than any appearance of a smoking gun.

Between June and September, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) convened depositions or transcribed interviews with more than a dozen former Biden aides, including chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients. The Trump administration waived executive privilege for witnesses as part of an effort to clear the way for their cooperation. Even so, several of them invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The House Oversight GOP is citing, in part, this barrier to getting information from the witnesses as proof of an internal cover-up around Biden’s health. The committee chair is now asking President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to look into each and every one of Biden’s executive actions, with Comer arguing the state of Biden’s mental faculties could not be accounted for at the time of signing.

“[B]arring documentation establishing a record of President Biden’s decision-making, the Committee deems void President Biden’s executive actions that were signed using the autopen,” Comer wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. “[A]nd the Committee determines that action by the Department of Justice is warranted to address the legal consequences of that determination.”

The request could prolong the administration’s crusade against some of Trump’s biggest political rivals, though the efforts to overturn Biden’s executive actions could be blocked by the courts. Presidents also have for years relied on the autopen to sign materials as a standard practice, and Biden has maintained that his decisions were his own.

The Republican report recommends that the District of Columbia Board of Medicine investigate whether Biden’s White House doctor, Kevin O’Connor, failed his duties as a physician by misleading Americans as to the president’s health. As evidence, the report pointed to O’Connor’s refusal to cooperate with the committee’s probe: O’Connor cited his Fifth Amendment rights and physician-patient privilege in declining to answer questions. Republicans also cited O’Connor’s decision to forgo a cognitive exam for the president.

Finally, Comer is asking DOJ to investigate O’Connor as well as two senior aides — Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini — who also cited the Fifth Amendment to ascertain whether their conduct in the former administration was criminal.

“Dr. O’Connor’s lack of transparency demonstrated while serving as the active White House physician and not testifying before this Committee to answer relevant, pointed questions about President Biden’s ability to carry out the duties of the presidency is untenable for a licensed medical professional tasked to diagnose, heal, and protect the official in the highest elected office,” Comer wrote in a letter to the D.C. Board of Medicine’s chair.

The letter added that, if necessary, O’Connor should be sanctioned by the Board of Medicine.

Comer’s leadership of the probe into Biden’s mental decline comes at a fortuitous time in his own political career: The Kentucky Republican is weighing a bid for the state’s governorship in 2027 — a race where Trump’s endorsement could carry considerable weight.

He previously co-led an impeachment inquiry into Biden that culminated in a hundreds-of-pages long report that concluded his family “engaged in a global influence peddling racket from which they made millions of dollars.” And although the report argued Biden’s actions constituted “impeachable conduct,” House GOP leadership never set up an impeachment vote on the House floor.

Biden’s weak performance in the June 2024 presidential debate set off a cascade of questions over his mental acuity, ultimately forcing him out of the presidential race. But even after he dropped his reelection campaign and largely stepped aside from public life, Republicans continued to press the party’s leadership for covering up Biden’s potential health failings.

Comer took on the charge of putting together a review of the former president’s use of the autopen. Trump, separately, launched the administration’s own probe into whether Biden’s former White House aides contributed to a cover-up of his decline and authorized illicit use of the autopen.

“With the exception of the RIGGED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020, THE AUTOPEN IS THE BIGGEST POLITICAL SCANDAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social this summer.

The Justice Department and representatives for Biden, O’Connor, Bernal and Tomasini did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Among the highlights of Comer’s report is that Zients told the committee that Biden had been informed of his suggestion that he should consider dropping out of the presidential race and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, thought Biden should drop out after the June debate.

Additionally, Zients disclosed that Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, took part in some White House discussions around pardons. Biden would go on to pardon the younger Biden, who was facing his own legal struggles.

Democrats grappled Monday with the first major fraying of their coalition amid the government shutdown, with a federal employee union calling for them to stand down four weeks into the standoff.

There was no immediate surrender from party leaders, but the union’s plea forced many Democratic lawmakers into a defensive crouch. Their No. 2 Senate leader said it would be a subject of internal conversations this week with bipartisan talks all but ground to a halt.

“It has a lot of impact. They’ve been our friends,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters Monday, adding that Democrats “take them seriously.”

The push by the American Federation of Government Employees for Congress to immediately pass a “clean” stopgap funding bill, which is what has been offered by Republicans, is among a laundry list of pressure points that are bearing down on lawmakers.

By the end of the week, members of the military will miss their next paycheck, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will run out and Americans who get their health insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges will confront premium spikes as open enrollment starts without a deal on how to extend soon-to-expire subsidies. The ramifications of the shutdown on air travel also escalated over the weekend.

Sen. Mark Warner of federal-worker-heavy Virginia has been firmly in favor of confronting President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans over the expiring ACA subsidies and health care. But the Democrat struck a more cautious note Monday.

“Look, I think we can still deal with health care and SNAP, but I know … the shutdown is a real challenge,” he said. “Federal employees feel like they’ve been abused and also going for weeks now without pay.”

He sidestepped a question on whether the AFGE’s statement would change his position: “Let’s see.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met Monday evening with his leadership circle, including Durbin. The entire Senate Democratic caucus will meet for a closed-door lunch Tuesday.

Schumer didn’t directly address the union’s new position during a floor speech Monday. Spokespeople for Schumer also did not respond to a request for comment on the group’s statement, in which national president Everett Kelley said, “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.”

Instead, Schumer noted the cascading consequences of the shutdown and laid the responsibility for ending it on Trump and Republicans, saying that the president “skipped town for his second foreign trip in a month.”

“The president should stop focusing on foreign escapades, on ballrooms, on bailouts for Argentina, and start focusing on negotiating with Democrats,” Schumer said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters in Chicago that Democrats aren’t budging.

“We want to find a bipartisan agreement that reopens the government immediately,” he said. “We’re going to continue to stand by hardworking federal employees, and our position has not changed over the last several weeks.”

But among the rank-and-file, there are growing signs of bipartisan frustration about the stalemate, with few signs of movement in the Capitol for weeks.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in a floor speech Monday called for the Senate to abandon its typical four-day workweek and gavel in Friday, joking with reporters afterward that she went “rogue.”

“I don’t think we should be going home and just behaving as if this was another week in the United States Senate — not when we have a government shutdown,” Murkowski said. “There is so much, so much that is coming at us like a freight train.”

Murkowski, who has an independent streak, pointed to the looming SNAP deadline and ACA open enrollment as a “pivot point” for Congress. She spent time speaking with several colleagues on the Senate floor Monday, including Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, as well as GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama.

“I thought it was really constructive,” she said about the conversations, adding that lawmakers need to get to a point where “we’re not going to leave the room until we work this out.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson pointed to the looming deadlines Monday and said the onus is on Democrats to relent. Johnson cited the union’s statement during a news conference, saying he hoped it impacted Democrats’ thinking.

“They understand the reality of this,” he said.

But Republicans are facing a tactical divide of their own as they debate whether to hold standalone votes on the Senate floor this week that would ease particular pain points such as the SNAP lapse and paychecks for active-duty troops.

Senate GOP leaders won’t make a final decision until a closed-door lunch Tuesday as they hear out different factions within their conference. But they are wary of easing up on Democrats just as they show signs of fraying and are seen as unlikely to allow votes on the so-called “rifle-shot” bills.

Durbin, for instance, predicted Monday that bills from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would pay air traffic controllers and TSA agents and from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that would keep food aid flowing would likely pass with Democratic support.

What was also clear Monday is that Democrats continue to feel comfortable laying the blame for the shutdown at Trump’s feet — especially as he spends the week in Asia.

That colored responses from many Democrats, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who said in a statement that “Trump should spend less time traveling around the world and more time negotiating an end to his shutdown.”

Van Hollen is in talks with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to try to find an agreement on legislation that would pay federal employees and active-duty military troops. Democrats are also proposing limiting Trump’s ability to fire federal employees for the duration of the shutdown.

“We’ve been engaged over the weekend and now,” Van Hollen said Monday.

Another Democrat from a fed-heavy state, Virginia’s Tim Kaine, also invoked Trump Monday in brushing off the union’s new stance.

“The AFGE would not want us to cut a deal and then have Trump fire a bunch of people next week. If we cut a deal and then he did that, they would come to us and say, ‘What the hell were you guys thinking?’” Kaine told reporters.

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

Dozens of Democratic attorneys general and governors are planning to sue President Donald Trump’s administration Tuesday over its decision to not tap emergency funds amid the government shutdown to keep food aid flowing to 42 million Americans next month, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of a public announcement.

Trump officials concluded in a Friday memo that they cannot legally tap a $5 billion contingency fund for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program amid the shutdown to pay benefits in November. Some in the administration believe, with $9 billion needed to fund SNAP payments for the month, there is no time to distribute smaller payments to individual states.

Administration officials anticipated their legal determination would be challenged in court, POLITICO reported last week, and there are no serious efforts underway at USDA to find other sources of funding, according to two other people granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. But some GOP lawmakers whose constituents would be clobbered by a first-ever lapse of federal food benefits, are pushing for some kind of patch to prevent that from happening.

Senate Republicans are divided over whether to vote on a standalone bill to keep SNAP beneficiaries — many of whom live in rural and Hispanic-majority Republican districts — from losing assistance. Many argue Democrats will be at fault if the Friday deadline barrels past with no fix as they continue to push Democratic senators to vote for the stopgap spending bill the House passed last month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune argued Monday the best way to fund SNAP was for Democrats to vote to reopen the government, though he said GOP senators would discuss the issue during their Tuesday policy lunch.

Republicans, for now, don’t believe Thune will put a SNAP funding carve-out to a vote this week, according to two senators and three aides granted anonymity to discuss GOP party strategy.

But a growing number of Senate Republicans — including some within Thune’s own leadership circle — are publicly saying Congress needs to fund SNAP whether or not Democrats relent on overall government funding, lest millions without food aid before Thanksgiving.

“Yeah, I would vote for that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said in a brief interview Monday about supporting a standalone SNAP bill.

Capito, who chairs the Senate GOP policy committee and whose constituents are heavily reliant on SNAP, said she didn’t want the program to lapse during the shutdown.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins and a handful of other Republican senators have signed on to a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to fund the program, and they are pushing for a vote this week.

Asked Monday if she wants the administration to allow SNAP to be administered in November, Collins replied, “I certainly do.”

Collins said she wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins last week and “strongly recommended that she use the $5 billion in contingency fees.” She said she hadn’t heard back from the secretary.

Republican and Democratic aides believe a SNAP carve-out would pass in the Senate, but bringing it up for a vote this week would require all 100 senators to agree to fast-track it to the floor.

Privately, Republicans fear allowing a standalone vote on food aid would relieve key pressure on Democrats and potentially prolong the shutdown. Passing it would also mean bringing the House back into session to send it to Trump’s desk, something Speaker Mike Johnson has been trying to avoid.

“If we could figure out a way to find something Democrats will vote for, we’d love to do that, but right now, we could fully fund the SNAP program by reopening the government,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said. “We could do that in 30 minutes from now.”

Asked if he would support a standalone SNAP bill, Mullin replied, “I would support opening the government back up.”

Calen Razor and Jordain Carney contributed to this report. 

The government shutdown gets uglier at the end of this week.

With President Donald Trump traveling abroad and Congress still deeply divided over a path to fund federal agencies, a pileup of deadlines on and around Nov. 1 is set to put many U.S. households at risk of new hardship: Popular programs that provide nutrition assistance, early childhood education and air service to rural communities are now among those about to run out of money.

Thousands of federal employees will also miss their first full paychecks this week, so services like TSA screenings and air traffic control operations could be further stunted if those workers stop showing up, as was the case during the 35-day partial shutdown that ended in early 2019.

“Things are about to get worse,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned in a floor speech late last week.

And that’s to say nothing of the Nov. 1 date that open enrollment begins for Affordable Care Act health plans. That’s when people will start to see just how much their premiums are set to skyrocket because insurers aren’t confident Democrats and Republicans will reach a deal to extend enhanced tax credits before they expire at the end of the year — a central point of conflict amid the partisan shutdown impasse.

Trump employed a strategic — and unprecedented — maneuver to alleviate the first major pain point of the shutdown earlier this month, when he paid active-duty members of the military out of other accounts. Still, the White House has yet to take similar steps to fund several other priorities where payments come due in the coming days.

In Congress, some lawmakers are working to mitigate the shutdown’s effects on select services with piecemeal bills. But none of those measures are on the fast track to final passage.

As the shutdown hits the four-week mark and Thanksgiving fast approaches, here’s when cash is expected to run out for key programs if Congress can’t strike a deal soon.

SNAP food aid

Food assistance that more than 40 million people rely on — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will start to run out of money Saturday. And the Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to keep those food benefits going, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

At least 25 states are already planning to cut off benefits, which support low-income families.

Some lawmakers have been pressing the administration to tap into an agriculture contingency fund to pay out some of the benefits next month. That pot of cash only has about $5 billion left, though — far less than the roughly $9 billion needed to cover food aid through November.

Head Start

Federal funding will stop flowing on Saturday to some early childhood education programs supported by Head Start, the Health and Human Services program that funds education, health and nutrition services for more than 800,000 children under the age of six.

More than 130 programs are set to miss federal funding, spanning 41 states and Puerto Rico, and serving about 59,000 children, according to the National Head Start Association, the nonprofit organization that represents the providers. Loss of federal funding means some teachers won’t get paid and some centers will close.

After funding first lapsed Oct. 1, Head Start programs serving about 6,500 children didn’t get their usual cash.

WIC nutrition assistance

The administration already buoyed funding earlier this month for the federal nutrition assistance program that serves about 7 million low-income mothers and babies by redirecting cash from an account that funds things like school breakfast and lunch programs.

But the coffers will dry up Saturday unless the Trump administration taps another $300 million in emergency cash for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC.

Essential Air Service

The Trump administration has warned that the Essential Air Service — which subsidizes airline service to small, often rural, communities — is likely to run out of funding over the weekend.

Some airlines serving Alaska and other remote areas of the country might have to increase airfare to have enough cash to pay staff in the absence of federal subsidies. Residents and businesses in hard-to-reach areas have been sensitive to disruptions in the program, especially after many airlines stopped operating out of small airports during the pandemic.

The service is crucial enough that the Transportation Department tapped $42 million to avoid a lapse earlier this month.

Military pay

Members of the military will miss paychecks on Friday if Trump doesn’t intervene like he did earlier this month, when he paid active-duty servicemembers by tapping about $6.5 billion meant for military research and development efforts. But it could be hard to make the same move again since that pot of cash had about $10 billion left before the president pulled from it last time.

Trump does plan to continue using other funding to cover military paychecks during the shutdown, according to two White House officials granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pentagon officials also said Friday that they have accepted an anonymous gift of $130 million from a wealthy donor to help pay military salaries during the shutdown.

The White House has not disclosed how much money it believes is still available, however, and a multibillion-dollar payout twice a month could quickly drain the Pentagon’s leftover cash.

Federal civilian paychecks

Many civilian employees across government agencies will experience their first fully missed paychecks of the government shutdown Tuesday and Thursday, after some already went without compensation late last week since there are different pay periods for various federal offices.

Congressional aides are among the people who will feel the pain, with House staffers due to miss pay Friday. Their Senate counterparts are set to go without compensation the following week. The lawmakers embroiled in the shutdown standoff, however, will continue to get their salaries on schedule thanks to the Constitution.

The Trump administration has been looking for ways to pay air traffic controllers during the shutdown following his unilateral action to pay the troops. And while some lawmakers have proposed legislation to that end, Senate Democrats rejected a measure last week that would pay select government workers and active-duty members of the military.

Opponents of that bill argued that it would empower Trump to choose who gets to be paid and who must remain on furlough without a paycheck, strengthening the negotiating position of Republicans as the shutdown continues.

Speaker Mike Johnson has also said he would not call House lawmakers back to town to pass piecemeal bills to pay federal workers, arguing that it would “take the pressure off” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “to get his job done and open the government again.”

Meredith Lee Hill, Grace Yarrow, Mackenzie Wilkes, Pavan Acharya and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

The government shutdown has blown through missed paychecks, mass firings and threats of delayed public benefits. It will soon be voters’ turn to help bust through the impasse.

In less than two weeks, closely contested statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia will offer the first serious test of the electorate since President Donald Trump began his second term. If the shutdown does not end before then, returns will come in on the day it matches the 35-day record.

Whether the people’s voice will matter is another question entirely. Lawmakers of both parties said in interviews they were skeptical that the election results would move them or party leaders off their firmly entrenched positions. Many said they expected the outcome to only validate their priors.

“I don’t think any Democrats here are looking at the shutdown in the context of the margin of victory in Virginia,” said Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Democrat who represents the state’s close-in Washington suburbs. He predicted a Democratic victory could force Republicans to change course, not his own party.

Those predictions are underscored by the vanishingly small role the shutdown has appeared to play in both states as early voting begins. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat-turned-Republican from south New Jersey, said the shutdown will have at most “a tiny tangential effect” in his state.

“If they’re smart, they realize no one gains or loses a lot from it,” he said of the two gubernatorial contenders — Republican businessman Jack Ciattarelli and Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill.

Even in federal-worker-heavy Virginia, the shutdown has been subsumed by a larger clash over Trump’s sharp-elbowed approach to cutting government spending and its impact on government jobs. A recent Washington Post-George Mason University poll found only 1 percent of respondents ranked the shutdown as the most important issue in that state’s elections.

The disconnect between the standoff in Washington and the attitudes of voters could scramble how the off-year elections are interpreted. Typically, they are seen as bellwethers for presidents and their parties.

Coming off their 2016 shock loss to Trump, Democrats were buoyed by big victories in New Jersey and Virginia in 2017. Republicans were hopeful during President Joe Biden’s first term after flipping the Virginia gubernatorial mansion and coming close in New Jersey. This time, the political lessons could be muddled.

It’s possible there could be a split result in the two gubernatorial races. Democrats see the shutdown and the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers as turbocharging their efforts in Virginia, where Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger is banking on a Trump backlash and tying Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to his administration’s dramatic cuts.

“Federal workers feel like this administration has been literally abusing them for months,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). “There is huge amounts of fear.”

Trump has been a major factor in New Jersey, especially after the president took aim this month at a key infrastructure project relied on by New York City commuters. But cost-of-living concerns have also been front and center. And in running to succeed two-term Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, Sherrill is working against the Garden State’s political gravity: No party has held the governor’s mansion for more than three terms consecutively since 1961.

Even within each state, there could be mixed results. In recent polls, for instance, Spanberger has run ahead of Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who has been dogged by the public release of text messages where he fantasized about the death of a prominent Republican and his family.

Nov. 4 will also see the climax of a high-profile mayoral race in New York City and a closely watched California ballot measure that would allow a redraw of congressional lines in the state. Neither result will map neatly onto the shutdown fight and will compete for attention with the big governors’ races.

Taken together, that has left partisans on both sides comfortable saying they have no plans to reconsider their positions on what could become the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

“No matter what happens politically in Virginia or New Jersey or elsewhere, Democrats will continue to stay the course in our efforts to deliver for the American people,” said Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.).

“If Democrats had not voted to shut down the government, there would have been no furloughs or layoffs,” said Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) in a statement. She added that Democrats currently on the ballot “must now own the obstructionist values of their D.C. colleagues who remain focused on catering to their far left base instead of working for the American people.”

So far this month, lawmakers have cited conflicting polling showing that voters are blaming the other party for the shutdown. Most national surveys show the electorate closely divided on the blame game, with a small plurality saying Republicans are most at fault. House Democrats were recently heartened by internal polling of key swing districts from early October showing a modest increase in their candidates’ prospects against generic Republicans.

But polls are no substitute for elections, and on Nov. 4, lawmakers will see the most reliable measure of voter sentiment in two of the most populous states in the country. There are more than 18 million residents in New Jersey and Virginia combined, accounting for about 5 percent of the total U.S. population.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat whose home state of Maryland sits between New Jersey and Virginia, predicts that the results of the two gubernatorial races will be “a referendum on the Trump administration,” at least in part.

“And I think that people are going to come out and show their strong disapproval of the way Trump is conducting himself, including the shutdown,” he said.

But others had their doubts that there would be any lessons to glean that could help bring a historic standoff to an end.

“State elections are state elections,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) was even more blunt: “I don’t know what affects the shutdown, honestly.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

The Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to pay for federal food benefits, imperiling benefits starting Nov. 1 for nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

USDA said in the memo that it won’t tap a contingency fund or other nutrition programs to cover the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of federal funds at the end of the month.

The contingency fund for SNAP currently holds roughly $5 billion, which would not cover the full $9 billion the administration would need to fund November benefits. Even if the administration did partially tap those funds, it would take weeks to dole out the money on a pro rata basis — meaning most low-income Americans would miss their November food benefits anyway.

In order to make the deadline, the Trump administration would have needed to start preparing for partial payments weeks ago, which it has not done.

Congressional Democrats and anti-hunger groups have urged the Trump administration to keep SNAP benefits flowing into November, some even arguing that the federal government is legally required to tap other funds to pay for the program. But senior officials have told POLITICO that using those other funds wouldn’t leave money for future emergencies and other major food aid programs.

Administration officials expect Democratic governors and anti-hunger groups to sue over the decision not to tap the contingency fund for SNAP, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private views. The White House is blaming Democrats for the lapse in funding due to their repeated votes against a House-passed stopgap funding bill.

The Trump administration stepped in to shore up funding for key farm programs this week after also identifying Pentagon funds to pay active-duty troops earlier in the month.

USDA said in the memo, which was first reported by Axios, that it cannot tap the contingency fund because it is reserved for emergencies such as natural disasters. The department also argues that using money from other nutrition programs would hurt other beneficiaries, such as mothers and babies as well as schoolchildren who are eligible for free lunches.

“This Administration will not allow Democrats to jeopardize funding for school meals and infant formula in order to prolong their shutdown,” USDA wrote in the memo.

Congress could pass a standalone bill to fund SNAP for November, but that would have to get through the Senate early next week and the House would likely need to return to approve it. Johnson said this week if the Senate passes a standalone SNAP patch, the House would “address” it.

Some states, including Virginia and Hawaii, have started to tap their own emergency funds to offer some food benefits in the absence of SNAP. But it’s not clear how long that aid can last given states’ limited budgets and typical reliance on federal help to pay for anti-hunger programs. USDA, furthermore, said states cannot expect to be reimbursed if they cover the cost of keeping benefits flowing.