SNAP
Week of October 24-30, 2025
Welcome to TRACKING THE CRISIS, a weekly round-up from The Democracy Collaborative tracking the administrative, legislative, and other actions of the Trump Administration as well as the many forms of legal and movement response from across a broad range of social, political, and economic actors. TDC is providing this service for collective informational purposes, as a tool for understanding the times during a period of disorientingly rapid flux and change in the U.S. political economy. TDC should not be understood as endorsing or otherwise any of the specific content of the information round-up.
TRUMP TRACKER: Administration actions
42 million Americans to lose SNAP food aid, other benefits on November 1st as government shutdown passes 30-day mark with no resolution. Senators left Washington this week having failed to resolve their impasse over the government shutdown in time to avoid going over the dreaded ‘cliff’ of an unprecedented lapse in funding for SNAP and other social safety net programs. As of Saturday, November 1st, over 42 million low-income households will not receive their SNAP benefits for November, potentially leading to a crisis of food security for nearly 1 in 8 Americans. The USDA, which oversees the program, has a $6 billion contingency fund set aside to cover benefits in emergency situations such as these, but Trump officials claimed it could not legally tap into the fund before appropriations have been passed. Policy experts disagreed, saying the USDA is actually ‘legally required’ to use the fund to cover benefits during a government shutdown. Two top USDA officials in charge of food aid left their positions this week as dozens of Democratic governors and attorneys general prepared to sue the Trump Administration to release the funds. The agency’s official contingency plan for the shutdown, which was published September 30 and addresses use of the fund, was quietly taken down from the USDA website this week; and bipartisan efforts led by Sen. Josh Hawley to pass emergency authorizations for SNAP were blocked by Majority Leader Thune, who instead ramped up pressure on Democrats to pass the GOP’s ‘clean’ stopgap bill and reopen the government. On Monday, the largest federal workers’ union, AFGE, called on Democrats to end the shutdown as tensions between party leaders ran high and other unions encouraged Democrats to hold the line.
This week marks a turning point in the shutdown battle, as the ‘pain points’ of losing access to SNAP and vital safety net programs, such as Head Start, programs for Tribal Nations and energy assistance in rural areas will hit large swathes of the general public. Food banks, which had already been seeing greater demand in recent months, will be hit with a double whammy as those losing SNAP join thousands of furloughed federal workers who have been unpaid for weeks and borne the brunt of the shutdown’s impacts. Air traffic controllers, who have been working without pay during the shutdown, are reportedly at a ‘breaking point’ as problems at airports spiked over the weekend, raising concerns about safe travel for the upcoming holidays. A federal judge this week blocked Trump and Vought’s planned government layoffs indefinitely; though the CBO estimates that the $7 billion in lost productivity may nonetheless have permanent effects on the economy. Trump is facing criticism for stretching his authority to reshuffle federal funds to pay the military, ICE, and other federal security personnel while leaving other federal workers in the lurch; the Pentagon announced the military was paid by a $130 million private donation from a ‘friend’ of Trump (later revealed as billionaire Timothy Mellon), which some observers point out is not only illegal, but also sets a dangerous precedent that erodes the Constitutional authority of Congress to control spending.
November 1st also marks the start of open enrollment for Obamacare, where millions of Americans will also face significant sticker shock; premium prices revealed on healthcare.gov this week spiked by an average of 26%, highlighting the stakes of the shutdown fight for Democrats as well as a growing number of Republicans in hard-hit districts who are grappling with voter frustration over healthcare costs. During a call with House Republicans this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene tore into Speaker Johnson over his lack of a plan to keep healthcare affordable, as Sen. Thom Tillis urged the GOP to accept a two-year extension as a compromise proposal to Democrats for reopening the government. CNN reports that rank-and-file Senators are engaged in ‘shadow negotiations’ towards a compromise, which would be just a first step forward in a series of anticipated battles over spending as questions also surround next steps for Speaker Johnson, who for five weeks has refused to convene the House or swear in newly elected Representative Adelita Grijalva, who has remained unseated for a record 36 days.National Guard ordered to ready ‘quick reaction forces’ against civil unrest as Trump hints at sending full military into U.S. cities; Supreme Court to consider key case on troop deployments. An internal memo from the Pentagon obtained by the Guardian this week revealed orders for the National Guard to create ‘quick reaction forces’ that will be trained and equipped for ‘civil unrest’ and ‘riot control’. The total size of the force will be 23,500 troops, comprising up to 500 personnel each from all U.S. states and territories, who are to complete training and preparations by April and stand ready for “rapid nationwide deployment” to quell civil disturbances. The memo comes on the heels of Trump’s speech to U.S. troops in Japan on Tuesday, where he told them he was prepared to send “more than the National Guard” into American cities. When asked by reporters to specify what he meant, he alluded to earlier threats to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military on U.S. soil, saying, “I’d be allowed to do whatever I want. The courts wouldn’t get involved. Nobody would get involved. And I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines – I could send anybody I wanted.” The orders have raised fears that Trump is creating a militarized police force to lay the groundwork for a military state; a former U.S. Marine captain told the Guardian she feared it would be used to send troops to states led by Democratic governors without their permission and could even be used to suppress turnout and disrupt the fair operation of elections. Retired Maj. General Randy Manner, a former commander of the National Guard, condemned the orders as “un-American and wrong,” and said deploying the military to U.S. cities “presents a clear and present danger to the First Amendment rights and freedoms we cherish.”
The revelations come at the same time that three separate lawsuits filed against the Trump Administration’s military deployments in California, Portland, and Chicago are being appealed in federal courts in response to contrasting rulings; in California, a lower court ruling blocking the deployment of troops was overturned at the Ninth Circuit, while the Seventh Circuit upheld the restraining order in Chicago. The Supreme Court began deliberations on the Chicago case this week as it considers a key legal question around Trump’s use of executive power under an archaic provision of USC Title 10 to federalize the National Guard. The Brennan Center for Justice provides an overview of the cases and possible directions the Supreme Court could take, stressing that “the stakes could not be higher” given that the prohibition on using the military as a domestic police force, enshrined in the Posse Comitatus Act, is “one of the most important protections we have in this country for democracy and individual liberty.”Economy on the brink as Fed, flying blind, cuts interest rates as job market collapses amid AI-driven mass layoffs; tech giants pump AI bubble. On Wednesday, October 29, Fed chair Jerome Powell announced a quarter-point interest rate cut to shore up a stalled labor market amid slipping consumer confidence and heightened anxiety about the economy and cost of living. Noting that the Fed is ‘driving in the fog’ without access to key economic data on hiring and growth due to the government shutdown, Powell emphasized the need to address the labor market, which has been stuck in a holding pattern for several months and now appears to be at a tipping point as a slew of major companies announced mass layoffs this week. On Tuesday, October 28, Amazon announced its biggest mass layoff in history, shedding over 14,000 jobs; on the same day, UPS announced 48,000 layoffs, Intel laid off 24,000 workers, and a host of other major companies in the tech, retail and communications sectors shed tens of thousands of jobs, sparking fears of a job bloodbath in the white-collar sector driven partly by companies’ embrace of AI on the one hand and uncertainty-driven retrenchment and downsizing on the other. Private-sector data estimates that 172,000 jobs have been lost in the last month, up 42% from the same time last year; Semafor reports that nearly 1 million U.S. jobs have been lost this year, the most since the 2009 Great Recession. Laid-off workers are being pushed out into a labor market where hiring is essentially frozen as companies pull back on seasonal hiring given tariff uncertainties. Reuters reports that companies are focusing on eliminating mostly entry-level white-collar jobs, perhaps indicating a deeper structural shift as executives face intense pressure to justify and show returns on billions of dollars’ worth of investment in AI tools ahead of third-quarter earnings announcements. Other analysts warn that since 70% of growth is driven by consumer spending, this could lead to a ‘doom loop’ where “companies lay off workers to meet quarterly earnings targets… newly unemployed workers spend less, leading to lower retail revenue and more layoffs.” New college grads are particularly affected as AI eliminates entry-level positions that lower interest rates cannot make up for through incentivizing new investment in labor; NBC News reports that 41.2% of young workers are underemployed in positions that have nothing to do with their college training.
Ironically, despite these dire signals from the job market, Powell mentioned that economic growth indicators appeared resilient, which he attributed to the emergence of a ‘bifurcated’ economy driven by spending among the wealthy while lower-income Americans are struggling with tariff-driven price hikes, spiking healthcare costs, and other fallout from Trump policies. Meanwhile, the five largest tech companies – Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, and Apple – announced enormous capital outlays for ‘hyperscaling,’ raising more than $78 billion in debt issuance to build out AI infrastructure and keep capital flowing through circular deals with chip makers like Nvidia, whose market cap reached a record $5 trillion on Wednesday. The enormous capital expenditures are heightening fears of a bubble as by one estimate, 80% of U.S. stock gains this year came from AI companies. Michael Roberts estimates that the AI bubble is now 17 times the size of the dot-com bubble of the 1990s and 4 times the subprime mortgage bubble of 2007. Top banks and investors are beginning to issue warnings of a massive correction in the AI bubble, Wired explains its various aspects and vulnerabilities in depth, and the Atlantic notes how AI’s increasingly debt-fueled investment has increased its risk of contagion to private equity and related sectors. Powell also commented on AI’s double-edged role in the real economy, anchoring new construction, investment and growth while also driving mass layoffs.Hegseth announces more boat strikes in Pacific, killing 14 as debates rage around regime change; Trump orders resumption of nuclear testing after 33 years. On Monday, October 27, Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military conducted strikes against four more boats in the eastern Pacific, killing 14; marking the first time multiple strikes were carried out on the same day and an escalation of Trump’s campaign against alleged drug traffickers. On Wednesday, U.S. forces destroyed another boat, killing 4 and bringing the total death toll to 61. Trump and Hegseth also redirected the United States’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, from the Middle East to Latin America this week, signaling a shift in focus as he prepares the largest U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean since the Bay of Pigs. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats asked the Justice Department to hand over all legal opinions it has produced regarding the legal justification for the strikes, to which the DOJ simply responded that the military operations are “consistent with the law of armed conflict.” On Wednesday night, the Trump Administration held a classified briefing for Republican Senators only, at which they were supposedly shown a classified memo outlining the legal case for the strikes’ legitimacy. The partisan nature of the briefing drew some pushback from Republicans who attended, fearing it could set a precedent for excluding Republicans if Democrats were in power; after bipartisan pressure, the DOD held a briefing for the House Armed Services Committee that left more questions than answers for Democratic lawmakers, who said that DOD officials claimed they “do not need to positively identify the individuals on the vessel to do the strikes” and that the United States did not detain the two people who survived the strikes because they “could not satisfy the evidentiary burden.” UN experts say the strikes amount to ‘extrajudicial executions’ and a ‘crime against humanity’; the Washington Post’s Editorial Board called it ‘piracy’ and Amnesty International called it nothing more than a ‘murder spree.’ Republican Sen. Rand Paul slammed Trump’s “unchecked powers” to proceed without Congressional approval, noting that Trump’s use of the “narco-terrorist” designation built upon precedents for extrajudicial killing established during the war on terror and normalized by Obama’s use of so-called ‘signature strikes’ to carry out drone killings of suspected terrorists.
Most observers and insiders see this ‘drug war’, like other U.S. campaigns in the region historically, as a pretext for regime change to remove Venezuela’s Maduro from power. Some observers note that in January, the Trump Administration under special envoy Richard Grenell had originally sought more cordial relations with the Maduro government, hoping to secure some oil deals, but shifted after Marco Rubio took over as Secretary of State. Others note how taking a belligerent stance towards Maduro could help Trump win back parts of his fraying coalition at home, especially among right-leaning Latinos who have been put off by deportations. Venezuelan opposition leader and recent Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado has called attention to the ‘unique’ business opportunities posed by regime change and calls for a sweeping privatization of at least 500 state-owned enterprises, touting the potential for a “$1.7 trillion opportunity” in reversing what she calls the ‘socialist disaster’. AP published a feature this week detailing a failed effort by DHS undercover agents to befriend Maduro’s official government pilot and convince him to betray his president. Al Jazeera notes Trump’s penchant for meddling in the affairs of other Latin American countries, as other regional leaders condemned the revived push for U.S. imperialism on the continent.ICE leadership shake-up as Noem demands more arrests, expands surveillance state; Greg Bovino called to court over violations, repression tactics. The Trump Administration on Tuesday announced a major reorganization of the top leadership of the Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency (ICE), replacing at least six regional ICE heads with officers from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and more closely integrating the two agencies in a bid to boost deportation numbers and integrate the Border Patrol’s more aggressive tactics to help ‘stoke fear’ in its targeting of Democrat-led cities. Central to the CBP’s appeal is Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, who has been at the lead of Trump’s ‘Midway Blitz’ crackdown in Chicago, where CBP’s more aggressive and dangerous tactics, such as ramming cars and breaking windows, have drawn admiration from Trump and Noem even as it has caused much controversy and concern in the community. On Tuesday, October 28, District Court judge Sara Ellis summoned Bovino to answer for violations of her earlier restraining order against the use of riot control munitions in Chicago after federal agents teargassed a group of children and their parents who were on their way to celebrate Halloween at a nearby school. Video taken of another incident appeared to show Bovino himself throwing tear gas canisters into a crowd of peaceful protestors. Ellis ordered Bovino to appear in court daily to provide reports on use of force in federal activities.
Lawyers for the city of Portland appeared before the District Court this week to argue that troops are not needed to quell unrest; lower court rulings have focused on whether Trump’s assessment of “rebellion” and “mob violence” in these cities is justified enough by facts on the ground to deploy federal forces over the objections of local officials. Local police officers testified on how the federal response, which included teargassing local police, had made the situation worse. A previous restraining order blocking the deployment in Portland was overturned last week by a three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals, but on Tuesday the court agreed to re-hear the case before a larger 11-judge panel after the Justice Department admitted it had misrepresented key facts in its initial legal filings. Court filings disclosed this week detailed a controversial information-sharing agreement for ICE to acquire sensitive taxpayer data from the IRS in order to track down suspected immigrants, including names of relatives and addresses. ProPublica reports on DHS’ use of Social Security Administration data to check voter rolls for non-citizens; the data pooling system found few actual undocumented immigrants but exposed millions of U.S. citizens to privacy threats and potential errors that could disenfranchise legitimate voters.Tracking the Money: Questions swirl around crypto mogul’s pardon, ballroom donors’ agenda; Trump family gets into online betting. This week, Senate Democrats asked Pam Bondi for more information into Trump’s decision to pardon Binance crypto exchange founder Changpeng Zhao after the Wall Street Journal published an account of how Zhao, fresh out of prison at the time of Trump’s inauguration, struck a deal with the Trump family’s crypto firm World Liberty Financial to engineer a stablecoin and use it to strike a massive deal with an Emirati investor, boosting the value of the Trumps’ stablecoin to over $2.1 billion and enriching Trump directly. Trump’s presidential pardon of Zhao last week paves the way for Binance to be re-established in the United States after having been banned for money laundering. According to Popular Information, the day after Zhao’s pardon, Binance began offering Trump’s two cryptocurrencies, USD1 and WLF1, on its exchange. Representatives of the Trump family as well as Steven Witkoff have been in talks with Binance representatives to take a financial stake in Binance’s revived U.S. operations. Senators called for an investigation into the apparent self-dealing, saying that “the pardon… signals to cryptocurrency executives and other white collar criminals that they can commit crimes with impunity, so long as they enrich President Trump enough.” A Reuters investigative report shows how the Trump family raked in $800 million from sales of crypto assets in just the first half of 2025, and is possibly using the trade war and a weakened dollar to cash in on its stablecoin. Trump’s Truth Social platform just announced its expansion into the online betting business, launching a crypto-based ‘prediction market’ that will allow users to bet on the outcome of particular events, from sports contests to political races to shifts in the economy. Scott Bolden, in an article for the Hill, points out how Trump has ‘turned the Oval Office into a giant ATM’, as this week he just outright asked the Justice Department to give him $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations the DOJ pursued after his first term. David Dayen and Sludge run down the list of donors to Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom, the government favors they have already gotten and what they want in return for their contribution to the project. CNN has launched a tracker of all the gifts Trump has gotten from foreign leaders while in office, from the $400m Qatari jet to the golden crown given to him by the South Korean president in the aftermath of the No Kings protests.
MOVEMENT TRACKER
Mutual aid initiatives mobilize to feed people and families who will be struggling with basic needs when SNAP benefits lapse. As millions of people stand to lose SNAP benefits on November 1st, communities across the country are preparing to help each other and keep people fed while the shutdown drags on. Three Democratic governors and 23 state Attorneys General are suing the Trump Administration for refusing to tap into USDA’s contingency reserve fund to keep benefits flowing through the shutdown. Some states are stepping up into the breach; Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive order on Thursday designating $20 million in state funds to support 2,600 food pantries across Illinois; grassroots food hubs can also be found in Chicago and statewide. New York, Oregon, and Virginia also issued emergency declarations authorizing state funds for emergency food assistance for families reliant on SNAP or WIC for food security. In Philadelphia, residents are forming “grocery buddy” networks to help neighbors in need and distribute food via the Northwest Mutual Aid Collective. Tribal Nations are also stepping up to feed their members and neighbors, including organizing hunts for traditional foods. Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, North Jersey, Austin, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Portland, and Brooklyn are also offering free meals to SNAP recipients. Black farmers in Kansas City began organizing food sovereignty networks three months ago in anticipation of a crisis, and launched the Hamer Free Food Program on Wednesday to help their neighborhoods.
For people new to mutual aid, Civil Eats provides a guide with 10 Ways to Get Involved with Food Mutual Aid that includes links to examples of mutual aid organizations. The Cut provides a menu of ways that individuals or groups can start mutual aid hubs and help families connect to resources locally. Mutual Aid Hub is an interactive map of networks throughout the country. The American Friends Service Committee provides a toolkit for creating a mutual aid network or pod on a local neighborhood scale. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is raising funds to distribute to various chapters throughout the country. Feeding America is a nationwide directory of food banks where people can search by zip code for a listing of local places to find food, give food, or volunteer. FoodFinder features a crowdsourced map of food pantries, and can be downloaded as an app on iPhone or Android so users can add resources or find food on the go.
House candidate Kat Abughazaleh and the ‘Broadview 6’ indicted on federal charges for protesting ICE; local officials stand with activists. 26-year-old Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive candidate and social media influencer running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, was indicted on federal charges this week along with five other activists who protested regularly at the Broadview ICE facility outside of Chicago. The protestors, now known as the ‘Broadview 6,’ face conspiracy charges for using “force, intimidation, and threat” to block an ICE agent. The indictment alleges that the protestors ‘banged aggressively’ and ‘physically impeded’ an ICE vehicle, forcing the agent to ‘drive at an extremely slow rate of speed.’ If convicted, the Broadview 6 face up to six years in prison for conspiracy and eight years for the intimidation charge. Abughazaleh addressed her social media audience after the indictment and called the charges a “political prosecution and a gross attempt to silence dissent,” saying the case was “a major push by the Trump Administration to criminalize protest and punish anyone who speaks out against them.” Two other political candidates and a member of the local Democratic committee were also indicted: Michael Rabbitt, Democratic committeeman in the 45th Ward in Chicago; Catherine Sharp, who is running for a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners and currently serves as chief of staff for Chicago Alderperson Andre Vasquez (40th Ward); and Brian Straw, a trustee for the village of Oak Park. Abughazaleh has been a regular presence at the Broadview ICE facility protests, and went viral last month after an ICE officer shoved her to the ground during her livestream. Nearly 130 local and state officials, including Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, threw their support behind the Broadview 6 by signing an open letter condemning the charges, citing a “disturbing national pattern” where “federal prosecutors are being weaponized to punish political opponents and silence dissent.” Hundreds of high school students walked out of Lawndale High School in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood to protest ICE raids, marching from their campus to the Little Village Arch as ICE officers looked on. The Nation also profiles Angelica Vargas, the “ICE Chaser Soccer Mom” whose viral videos of her chasing ICE vehicles throughout Los Angeles have earned a large following.
Labor considers the shifting ground for unions under Trump 2.0 and the possibilities for organized workers in the resistance and building power. Labor Notes is hosting an online roundtable for labor organizers to discuss and debate the question of “How can unions defend worker power under Trump 2.0?” The forum invites organizers to reflect critically on strategies and tactics to survive the Trump regime’s assault on workers and grow in strength and numbers to best position the labor movement for the future. Reflections currently on the forum include pieces from Peter Olney and Rand Wilson on combining electoralism, disruptive direct action, and creative solidarity in old and new ways to “find points of strength and synergy to step up” for members and the community; Kate Bronfenbrenner on taking on the ‘big targets’ by organizing workers in the largest and most powerful corporations, utilizing comprehensive campaigns that can build worker power outside the NLRB process and government enforcement; Alex Caputo-Pearl and Jackson Potter on reenergizing broad union structures through joint campaigns and a shared vision; Jimmy Williams on building a stronger labor movement by engaging with the rank and file through activating members, engaging in dialogue, and building a fighting union through political education; and Eric Blanc on building upon the ‘No Kings’ momentum to push toward a broader, more sustained movement willing to escalate towards more disruptive action, up to and including a general strike.
Various inspirational actions and aesthetics.
Movement Memos’ Kelly Hayes hosts a dialogue with Indigenous writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on “Resisting ICE, Building Worlds: Care and Survival in Fascistic Times.” They discuss Simpson’s book The Theory of Water and how it relates to anti-ICE organizing in Chicago, where Hayes is involved in rapid response organizing.
CBS News speaks to two Illinois National Guard members who have publicly committed to refusing orders to deploy to Chicago as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown, hoping to set an example as public conscientious objectors.
The Lever covers voters in Montana who are organizing to promote a state-level ballot measure that would effectively preempt Citizens United and place hard limits on campaign finance.
The New Republic examines the popularity of the anime series One Piece, its aesthetics and cultural resonance among Gen Z revolutionaries who have disrupted and overturned governments around the world.
Hip-hop icons Public Enemy released a new protest song this week, urging a new generation to “get up and do something.”
Upcoming Protests, Actions, and Events.
October 30 - November 6: The People Dissent provides a list of local and nationwide actions over the next week for those who want to rise up and resist.
Saturday, November 1: The Disappeared in America Nationwide Day of Action is a nationwide mobilization to honor lives lost in ICE custody and stand in solidarity with immigrant communities targeted by raids, detention, and dehumanizing policies that tear families apart. More information on local actions can be found on Mobilize.
Wednesday, November 5: Refuse Fascism will be kicking off a continuous protest action on the National Mall in Washington DC in a bid to bring about the Fall of the Trump Regime. More information and resources can be found at https://refusefascism.org/events/nov5/.
Sunday, November 9: Black Rose Anarchist Federation will be holding an online webinar and training session on How to Keep ICE Out of Your Workplace. More information and a Zoom registration link can be found on their website.
Monday, November 10: Activists at UC Berkeley are calling for the community to protest the return of Turning Point USA to the Berkeley campus as part of its national tour, scheduled for 5pm at Zellerbach Hall. More information can be found on Indybay.
November 25 - December 2: Blackout The System has called for a nationwide economic boycott scheduled around the Thanksgiving holiday and extending through Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The initiative aims to become the most significant economic blackout in recent history; participants are encouraged to refrain from working or spending money, and organize for the action in advance by joining the pressure campaign, sticker teams, or building power in the local community. More information on the action and ongoing campaign can be found at BlackoutTheSystem.com.
