The Trump administration has used federal government websites and official public service videos to place blame for the government shutdown on Democrats, drawing an outcry for injecting partisan politics into the bureaucracy. Now, some states with Democratic governors have seemingly adopted a milder version of the same tactic in announcing that federal food assistance for low-income families would not be available in November if the shutdown continued.
The website for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, which runs the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as SNAP, carried a banner message on Monday afternoon that November SNAP benefits could not be paid “because Republicans in Washington D.C., failed to pass a federal budget, causing the federal government shutdown.”
Likewise, the official web portal for SNAP recipients in Illinois warned that benefits would be interrupted “if the Republican federal government shutdown continues.” And the site for California’s health and human services agency attributed the shutdown — and the ensuing impact on state programs — to “the failures of the President and Congress to continue government funding.”
All three of these states have Democratic governors who are potential contenders for the 2028 presidential nomination.
The Department of Agriculture, which administers the SNAP program, warned states last week that if the government shutdown continued into November, there would not be enough funds to cover those benefits. About 42 million low-income people rely on the food assistance.
The partisan messages from the Trump administration seeking to blame Democrats for the shutdown have tended to use stronger, more dramatic language than the messages in states with Democratic governors have so far. For example, the website for the U.S. Forest Service blames “the Radical Left Democrats” and says “President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”
More than a dozen airports across the country have refused to display a video of Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, blaming Democrats for the government shutdown and any travel disruptions that result from it. Representatives for those airports said that the video was overly partisan.
The Pennsylvania Republican Party demanded an apology from Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, for the banner on the state’s Department of Human Services website. “Public service isn’t a political weapon and using a government website to fuel your partisan agenda is indefensible,” the group said in a post on X.
The Pennsylvania department said the banner was meant to highlight that “Republicans control the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the White House and have failed to pass a federal budget, leading to this federal shutdown,” leaving funding insufficient to make SNAP assistance available “without further action from the federal government.”
Campbell Robertson reports for The Times on Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.
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