Government Shutdown Threatens Food Stamps for Millions of Americans

Summary

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WSJ What’s News: "Government Shutdown Threatens Food Stamps for Millions of Americans"

Date: October 31, 2025
Host: Kate Bullivant, The Wall Street Journal
Featured Guests: Sabrina Siddiqui (Journal Reporter), Quintin Webb (Deputy Finance Editor, Europe), Mark Marmount (Senior Editor), Charles Passi (Journal Columnist)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the urgent threat posed to SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) by the ongoing government shutdown, which could leave millions of Americans without assistance just as the holiday season approaches. The episode also covers major tech earnings and AI investment, a spike in legally justified homicides due to "stand your ground" laws, developments involving SpaceX’s defense contracts, escalating US-Venezuela tensions, and an offbeat Halloween trend.

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1. Looming SNAP (Food Stamp) Crisis Amid Government Shutdown

Key Points:

• Government Shutdown Status:

  • Ongoing since October 1, after a stopgap bill fell short in the Senate.
  • Democrats are blocking government funding bills, demanding GOP negotiations over ACA health subsidy extensions.
  • President Trump urges Republicans to eliminate the filibuster to end stalemate.
    (00:48 – 02:20)

• Imminent SNAP Cutoff:

  • SNAP benefits are set to expire Saturday, threatening food security for ~42 million Americans.
  • Recipients have been notified by states that November benefits will be paused.
  • Food banks and pantries nationwide are bracing for overwhelming demand and may have to turn people away.
    (02:20 – 03:24)

• State and Legal Responses:

  • Some states are attempting to use their own funds to bridge the gap.
  • Over a dozen states are suing the Trump administration, arguing for emergency federal funds to keep SNAP running temporarily.
  • State-level solutions are patchy and insufficient.

Notable Quotes:

• Sabrina Siddiqui:
  "Food pantries across the country...have also said that they anticipate a sharp increase in people that they're going to need to feed, and they're really going to have to turn people away because they're just not going to have enough supply." (02:34)

• "More than a dozen states have actually filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration saying that they cannot actually freeze the SNAP benefits..." (03:01)

• Political Angle & Pressure:

  • Both Democrats and Republicans face mounting anger, with the holidays intensifying the stakes.
  • Potential for a standalone bill to protect SNAP payments, but leaders remain gridlocked.
  • Emotional toll as beneficiaries face insecurity during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

• Sabrina Siddiqui:
  "There's so much more anger and frustration that they can't come to some kind of resolution...people are going to go hungry at such a crucial time." (03:59)

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2. Tech Giants: Heavy AI Investment and Market Reactions

Key Points:

• Earnings Highlights:

  • Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple all report positive quarterly growth.
  • Over $400 billion to be invested in AI by major tech companies this year.
  • Investor enthusiasm continues, as seen by rising stock markets and large increases in the "Magnificent Seven" companies’ market share.
    (04:22 – 06:05)

• Investor Caution:

  • Despite overall positivity, Meta's stock fell over 10% after aggressive AI spending pledges.
  • Investors watch for companies overextending themselves at the expense of earnings.
  • Microsoft saw a minor selloff.

Notable Quotes:

• Quintin Webb:
  "People are broadly supportive of the idea that AI is going to be a game changer. You need to spend heavily to ensure you're in the vanguard. But the question is, are you doing that at the expense of earnings?" (05:13)

• Bubble Questions & Founder Control:

  • Analysts are openly wondering if an AI bubble is forming.
  • Major tech firms, often tightly controlled by founders, may press on with spending despite investor hesitation.

• Quintin Webb:
  "It might be the case that they can continue to push ahead even if you see some signs of investor wariness creeping in." (06:42)

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3. Justifiable Homicides Surge in "Stand Your Ground" States

Key Points:

• Findings:

  • In 30 US states with expanded self-defense protections, justifiable homicides rose 59% in six years, compared to a 16% increase in overall homicides.
  • The share of homicides ruled "justifiable" is higher in these states. (09:18 – 10:51)

• Contributing Factors:

  • Expansion of permitless carry laws has made it easier for people to carry guns in public.
  • Rising gun ownership rates lead to more armed confrontations.
  • Most "justifiable" homicides involve relatives or acquaintances, not strangers.

Notable Quotes:

• Mark Marmount:
  "There was a 59% increase in justifiable homicides over the six years versus a 16% increase in overall homicides, which basically suggested that these are becoming much more common in stand your ground states." (10:04)

• "About 60% of justifiable homicides...involve people who are relatives, acquaintances of the person who ended up shooting them." (12:22)

• Debate:

  • Critics argue these laws provoke more shootings.
  • Supporters believe they deter crime, though evidence is mixed.

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4. Other Noteworthy Stories

SpaceX & Pentagon Contracts

• SpaceX awarded $2 billion under the "Golden Dome" project for missile-tracking satellites. Also expected to be central to other military satellite networks. Reflects Elon Musk's growing national security influence. (06:59)

Disney-YouTube TV Dispute

• Disney’s channels (ESPN, ABC, FX) vanish from YouTube TV after a failed carriage agreement, impacting 10 million US homes. Fees and terms remain at issue. (08:01)

US Targets in Venezuela

• Trump administration eyes airstrikes on Venezuelan facilities tied to drug smuggling and the Maduro regime—a potentially major escalation in US policy toward Venezuela. (12:46)

Viral Halloween Trend: Potatoes

• Potatoes have gone viral as a surprise “treat” for trick-or-treaters.
• Charles Passi:
  "The buzz phrase seems to be I got a potato. And you look at these videos...kids getting potatoes and they're going nuts over it…now they have a potato to go along with the candy." (13:57)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• SNAP Benefits Under Threat: 00:48 – 04:22
• Tech Earnings & AI Investment: 04:22 – 06:59
• SpaceX Pentagon Contracts: 06:59 – 08:01
• Disney vs YouTube TV: 08:01 – 09:01
• Justifiable Homicides/Stand Your Ground: 09:18 – 12:41
• US Escalation on Venezuela: 12:46 – 13:57
• Potatoes as Halloween Treats: 13:57 – 14:20

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Memorable Quotes

• Sabrina Siddiqui (on SNAP):
  “...they anticipate a sharp increase in people that they're going to need to feed, and they're really going to have to turn people away because they're just not going to have enough supply.” (02:34)

• Quintin Webb (on AI Investment):
  “Are you doing that at the expense of earnings? Are you doing that beyond your own financial capacity?” (05:17)

• Mark Marmount (on Stand Your Ground Law):
  “In the stand your ground states there was a 59% increase in justifiable homicides...” (10:04)

• Charles Passi (on Potatoes):
  “The buzz phrase seems to be ‘I got a potato’...and they're going nuts over it.” (13:57)

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Summary Takeaway

This episode foregrounds how the political deadlock in Washington threatens basic lifelines for millions—most urgently through the potential lapse in SNAP benefits. The show also contextualizes how economic and legal shifts ripple from Wall Street earnings calls to Main Street tragedy, and from national security maneuvers to viral cultural quirks. The reporting is balanced, detailed, and laden with insights that humanize the headlines.

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Transcript

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[Kate Bullivant]

Tech giants are spending big on AI, but is it enough? Plus what the looming end of food stamps would mean for millions of Americans and we look into what's driving the rise of legally sanctioned homicides in many.

[Mark Marmount]

States states in the stand your ground states, there was a 59% increase in justifiable homicides over the six years versus a 16% increase in overall homicides. So there were some very interesting findings in the FBI, data that nobody has ever really looked at before.

[Kate Bullivant]

It's Friday, October 31st. I'm Kate Bullivant for the Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of what's news, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. President Trump has urged Senate Republicans to get rid of the filibuster, to reopen the government, the longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Posting on social media, Trump said it was time for Republicans to go for the nuclear option of eliminating the filibuster. Government funding lapsed on October 1 after a stopgap spending bill passed by the Republican led house fell five votes short of the 60 needed in the Senate since. Democrats have blocked the bill more than a dozen times, saying they won't provide the votes to reopen until Republicans negotiate a deal to extend enhanced Affordable Care act health insurance subsidies. The mounting pressure to end the shutdown comes as a series of funding cliffs are starting to pinch more Americans with one looming deadline concerning SNAP benefits, which are due to end on Saturday. Snap, once known as food stamps, is a federal program that provides assistance to people who can't afford to buy their own, helping around 42 million poor and disabled Americans to buy food each month. Journal reporter Sabrina Siddiqui explains what the cutoff to these vital benefits would look like.

[Sabrina Siddiqui]

What we've been hearing when we've talked to SNAP beneficiaries or recipients this week is they already have received notifications from state authorities that funding will be paused for November because of the shutdown. A lot of them are going to end up showing up at food banks and food pantries across the country who have also said that they anticipate a sharp increase in people that they're going to need to feed and they're really going to have to turn people away because they're just not going to have enough supply. There are some states that are looking at moving their own budgets around and if they have any room in their budget to try and have those benefits continue. More than a dozen states have actually filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration saying that they cannot actually freeze the SNAP benefits as part of the shutdown because they could use federal government emergency funds to fund SNAP for the time being. States may be able to step in in some cases, but that's just not going to be the case everywhere.

[Kate Bullivant]

Sabrina says that Democrats and Republicans are considering ways that could ensure the continuation of SNAP benef even with the government shutdown in place.

[Sabrina Siddiqui]

This cliff where these SNAP benefits are going to run out has put a lot more pressure on both Democrats and Republicans to come to some kind of compromise, even if it means just a standalone bill to ensure that people are able to use their food assistance benefits and especially because this is coinciding with with the holiday season. So the fact that the benefits won't be paid out in November, when families are going to be gathering for Thanksgiving and then you have Christmas holidays coming soon after that, there is so much more anger and frustration that they can't come to some kind of resolution in Washington and people are going to go hungry at such a crucial time.

[Kate Bullivant]

It's been a busy week for tech earnings, with Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple all reporting positive growth quarterly results. And as you might expect, the focus of many earnings calls has been the spending on artificial intelligence. Silicon Valley's biggest companies are planning to pour $400 billion into AI efforts this year, and still they say it's nowhere near enough. The Journal's Quintin Webb joins me now. Quintin, with this commitment to increase spending on AI and the recent earnings results, how are investors feeling?

[Quintin Webb]

Investors on the whole are on board with this. If you look at the fact that stock markets have risen to record highs and the proportion of market value that has gone to the Magnificent Seven is higher than ever before. People are broadly supportive of the idea that AI is going to be a game changer. You need to spend heavily to ensure you're in the vanguard. But the question is, are you doing that at the expense of earnings? Are you doing that beyond your own financial capacity? And we have seen a bit of a disparity this week where broadly results from big tech have been welcomed, with the notable exception of Meta, where their pledges to keep aggressively spending on AI were actually met with a kind of more than 10% drop in the stock. And to a lesser extent with Microsoft, where there was a bit of a sell off after the results. But overall I would say that it's been a very positive earnings season so far. A larger than usual proportion of stocks or companies have beaten forecast earnings, and for most of the tech sector, that has been true too.

[Kate Bullivant]

On Microsoft's earnings call, one analyst asked the question just straight out, you know, are we in a bubble? With that in mind, and you know what you were talking about how investors are feeling, how are tech companies looking to navigate this environment?

[Quintin Webb]

For most of them, it is a question of kind of making sure they don't fall behind. They are spending very, very heavily to kind of ensure they are in the race. I guess the question is whether at some point investors begin to grow wary and switch to a kind of show me the money mode, in which case you might see some discipline exerted on these companies because they might need to recalibrate their plans. But remember that in some cases these companies are quite tightly controlled by founders who have special voting rights or other power over the company. And so it might be the case that they can continue to push ahead even if you see some signs of investor wariness creeping in.

[Kate Bullivant]

That was the journal's deputy finance editor for Europe, Quintin Webb. SpaceX is set to receive $2 billion to develop satellites that can track missiles and aircraft under President Trump's Golden Dome project. That's according to people familiar with the matter. The funding was included in the tax and spending bill that Trump signed in July, but wasn't publicly linked to a contract to people familiar with the situation. SpaceX is also expected to have a major role in two other Pentagon satellite networks. One would relay sensitive information and the other would track vehicles on the ground. This development shows the growing influence of Elon Musk's company in US national security. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on SpaceX's involvement in the planned satellite systems. SpaceX didn't respond to requests for comment. Disney's channels, including ESPN, ABC and FX, have disappeared from Google's YouTube TV platform after the two sides failed to reach a new distribution agreement. Shortly before midnight Eastern time, the channels went dark in roughly 10 million homes. @ the heart of the dispute are the fees Disney is seeking from YouTube TV to continue offering its channels, particularly ESPN, one of the most expensive networks due to its premium sports content in a state. In a statement, YouTube said that the proposals Disney has submitted harm YouTube TV and preserve preferential terms for their own services. Disney said YouTube TV, which is owned by Alphabet's Google, balked at paying what other similarly sized distributors fork over for its content. Coming up, we Take a look at why the number of justifiable homicides by civilians in the US is rising. That's after the break.

[Mark Marmount]

American innovation demands resilient, sustainable electric grids with the capacity to power the data centers driving AI. For more on how to get there, search for Google's new series A New Era of American Innovation wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kate Bullivant]

In the US the number of legally sanctioned homicides has grown significantly in states that have expanded self defense rights under so called stand your ground laws. While Americans have long been free to use deadly force to defend themselves at home in 30 states, these laws extend legal protections for U.S. citizens using deadly force and self defence in public places. The Journal's senior editor Mark Marmount and his colleagues have been combing through the Federal Bureau of Investigation data on these stand your ground laws and he joins me now. Mark, tell us about what you found when carrying out this research.

[Mark Marmount]

So we looked through six years of data from the FBI about homicides and so called justifiable homicides, which are homicides of which people killed somebody else but were ruled essentially self defense. And we found that there was in the stand your ground states there was a 59% increase in justifiable homicides over the six years versus a 16% increase in overall homicides, which basically suggested that these are becoming much more common in stand your ground states. In addition, the share of justifiable, of overall homicides that are ruled justifiable in the stand your ground states was significantly higher than in the other states in the U.S. so there were some very interesting findings in the FBI data that nobody's ever really looked at before.

[Kate Bullivant]

And so why are we seeing an increase in the number of legally sanctioned homicides by civilians in these 30 stand your ground states?

[Mark Marmount]

There's a bunch of factors at play here. One of which is that a lot of these same states have passed what they call permitless carry. So you as a gun owner are allowed to carry your gun anywhere you want, whereas before you had to have a special license to carry it in public. There's also a particularly large increase in the number of people who own guns. So more people owning guns, more people carrying them in public leads to a greater potential for disputes, you know, road rage, various other things that go on in public or maybe in their homes. And that's leading to more of these cases that are ruled as justifiable or stand your ground self defense type killings.

[Kate Bullivant]

Mark, what do critics of stand your ground laws make of this increase? And at the same time, those who.

[Mark Marmount]

Support them, the critics of stand you'd ground laws have long said that these laws are going to lead to more homicides, more people shooting each other. The supporters of stand you'd ground laws say that when criminals know that another citizen might have a gun that they're going to be deterred. But there's mixed evidence on that. At best, people who backed these laws said this was mostly to defend yourselves against strangers. But the FBI data show that about 60% of justifiable homicides, self defense shootings in the U.S. involve people who are relatives, acquaintances of the person who ended up shooting them or killing them.

[Kate Bullivant]

That's the Journal's senior editor, Mark Marmount. Mark, thanks for joining me.

[Mark Marmount]

Thanks for having me.

[Kate Bullivant]

The Trump administration has identified targets in Venezuela that include military facilities used to smuggle drugs, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. While the president hasn't made a final decision on ordering land strikes, a potential air campaign would focus on targets that sit at the nexus of the drug gangs and the Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro's regime. Air attacks on targets inside Venezuela would mark a significant escalation of the campaign, which has until now been limited to airstrikes on alleged drug boats and would send a clear message to Maduro that it is time to step down. And finally, as trick or treaters ready themselves for another year of candy, collecting an unusual suspect has become a prize. That's the humble potato. Somehow, this unassuming vegetable has emerged not as a Halloween trick, but as a coveted treat. Journal columnist Charles Passi says that what started as one man's joke about 20 years ago has gained in popularity over the last few years as it turned into a viral trend on social media.

[Charles Passi]

The buzz phrase forget about 6, 7. The buzz phrase seems to be I got a potato. And you look at these videos from recent Halloweens of kids getting potatoes and they're going nuts over it. What's important to remember, as one person who's planning on doing it this year told me, the kids are going to get candy anyhow, but now they have a potato to go along with the candy.

[Kate Bullivant]

And that's it for what's news for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Michael Cosmitas. And I'm Kate Bullivant for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a great weekend. And thanks for listening.

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