Millions of Americans who rely on federal food benefits could be among the next casualties of the ongoing government shutdown. 

Approximately 42 million people in the U.S. who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are in danger of not receiving aid come Nov. 1, when the program’s funds are expected to run dry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) warned state agencies in a memo obtained by Fox News Digital on Thursday.

More than two dozen states have alerted residents to possible lapses in funding. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency over SNAP benefits on Thursday.

‘It requires about $8 billion each month to fund SNAP benefits nationwide. When there’s no funding it impacts not just pockets of people, but it’s going to impact people all around the country,’ said Rev. Eugene Cho, president and CEO of Bread for the World, a nonprofit hunger advocacy group that works with local partners to educate recipients about access to food.

Cho explained to Fox News Digital that some states will feel the drying up government funding more than others.

‘Yes, funding comes from the federal government, but the administration of it happens through local states,’ he said. ‘And so, when it comes to SNAP, states are on a little bit of a different rhythm in terms of how they’re conveying the reduction or the elimination of SNAP benefits. It is playing out a little bit differently from state to state.’ 

The longer the shutdown goes on, the less funding also becomes available for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program, which helps nearly 7 million vulnerable pregnant women and children under age 5.

It could pose a political headache for Democrats who have resisted agreeing to Republicans’ federal funding plan for over a month, demanding significant concessions on healthcare in exchange for their support.

‘We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. Continue to hold out for healthcare for illegals or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments,’ a USDA spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The House passed a seven-week extension of FY2025 funding largely along partisan lines on Sept. 19. The measure, a continuing resolution (CR), is aimed at giving lawmakers more time to strike a longer-term deal for FY2026.

But in the Senate, where several more Democrats are needed to break a filibuster than have been voting for it, progress has stalled, with the legislation having failed 12 times already.

Democrats are demanding that any spending plan be paired with an extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of 2025.

They have also called for Republicans to repeal the Medicaid cuts made in their One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) earlier this year.

‘Millions of American families are about to lose access to food assistance because Democrats are openly admitting to being afraid of their far-left base and refuse to reopen the government,’ House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital.

Thompson’s panel has jurisdiction over SNAP in the House.

‘We need to reopen the government, so we can put Americans first by making sure families can put food on the table and our farmers are supported,’ he said.

Democrats could also be faced with the political quagmire of having previously railed against Republicans moving to expand SNAP work requirements in the OBBBA, to now be blamed by the right for federal food benefits drying up.

The Trump administration does have some power to move existing funding around to help cover shortages during the shutdown. The White House moved research and development funding at the Pentagon to cover active duty military paychecks on Oct. 15 and reallocated some $300 million from tariff revenues for WIC earlier this month.

But any such fix would be temporary, as the two aforementioned adjustments have been.

When reached for comment about the administration’s SNAP warning, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee told Fox News Digital that USDA needed to tap into the government’s emergency SNAP reserves.

‘It’s time the administration do right by seniors, children and veterans and utilize the SNAP contingency fund to ensure benefits can be provided for November,’ ranking member Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., said.

The SNAP contingency fund currently has some $5 billion — not enough for an entire month’s worth of service.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters Thursday that he believed the White House would tap into that funding, however.

‘As has been the case in prior government shutdowns, the money can be found by the administration if they chose to do so. In fact, there’s about $5 billion available in a contingency fund for emergency circumstances just like this,’ Jeffries said. ‘But the administration refuses to agree to use it. Why? Because they want to starve the American people as part of their continuing effort to visit cruelty on everyday Americans.’

Democrats blocked a Republican-led attempt to provide essential government workers with paychecks amid an ongoing, 23-day shutdown, calling the bill overly selective and incomplete.

That bill, proposed by Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Todd Young, R-Ind., failed in a 54-45 vote, where 60 votes were needed to advance the bill over the threat of a filibuster.

Only three Democrats, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, voted with Republicans. 

In addition to compensating federal employees and military personnel during the current shutdown, the bill would also extend relief to future instances where funding bills aren’t in effect. 

‘For fiscal year 2026, and any fiscal year thereafter, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary to provide standard rates of pay, allowances, pay differentials, benefits, and other payments on a regular basis to excepted employees,’ the bill reads.

Johnson had pitched his bill as a long-term solution.

‘I just hope, on a nonpartisan basis, we do something that makes sense around here for once,’ Johnson said ahead of the bill’s consideration. 

‘With Democrats continuing the Schumer Shutdown, they should at least agree to pay all the federal employees that are forced to continue working. The 2025 Shutdown Fairness Act is a permanent fix that will ensure excepted workers and our troops are paid during a shutdown,’ Johnson said.

Other Republicans blasted Democrats for voting against the bill.

‘It means Democrats don’t care,’ Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. ‘We know this is going to end sometime. The question is when. I guess it will depend on how much carnage the Democrats want to create. To me, they are in a box canyon, and they can’t figure out how to get out.’ 

Essential federal employees have been asked to continue working since the government entered a shutdown on Oct. 1 after lawmakers failed to pass spending legislation to begin the 2026 fiscal year. Republicans have advanced a short-term spending extension that would open the government through Nov. 21. Democrats have repeatedly rejected that proposal though, demanding that Congress first consider an extension to expiring COVID-19-era supplemental funding for Obamacare health insurance subsidies. 

Republicans, who maintain that the health insurance subsidies are unrelated to the government’s short-term funding needs, have rejected those demands out of hand.

Democrats in the Senate have voted 12 times to defeat the stopgap bill. 

The shutdown looks poised to continue with no resolution in sight, prompting lawmakers to worry about key areas that are feeling the shutdown’s effects more acutely. The Johnson-Young supplemental package was the most recent attempt to provide a limited basis for relieving some of that pain.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Republicans in the House of Representatives appeared open to considering the Johnson-Young bill.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told House Republicans during a lawmaker-only call on Tuesday that his chamber would be ‘prepared to act’ if the bill passed the Senate, Fox News Digital was told. Johnson has repeatedly said he would give lawmakers 48 hours’ notice to return to Washington before any votes but has largely signaled he will keep the House out of session until Senate Democrats pass the GOP’s funding bill.

Johnson also said on the call that he was skeptical the bill would get enough Senate Democratic support to pass.

‘If they oppose the Ron Johnson bill in the Senate, it will be absolutely clear that they are simply using the military and air traffic control and law enforcement and all these other personnel as pawns for their political efforts,’ Johnson said, Fox News Digital was told.

But other lawmakers had hesitations about partially reopening the government, offering relief to some workers and not others. That was the concern of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ahead of Thursday’s vote.

‘I have a concern about picking and choosing among all the federal workers,’ Blumenthal said.

‘I’m fine to support it. I think we need to pay our military, but I want to define and limit it in a way that provides pay to essential workers who serve our public safety and our national defense,’ Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal voted against the measure.

Democrats in the House of Representatives signaled similar lines of opposition to the idea behind the Johnson-Young bill. 

‘It’s not legislation that I support, because it appears to be more like a political ploy to pick and choose, giving Donald Trump discretion [over] which employees should be compensated, and which employees should not be compensated. All employees should be compensated and that will happen when we reopen the government,’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters on Monday.

Senate Democrats also defeated other pieces of legislation that would open portions of the government. Last week, Democrats in the Senate voted against a 2026 defense spending bill ­— one of the 12 year-long bills normally used to fund the government.

Aside from the Johnson-Young bill, the Senate will not consider other pieces of spending legislation on Thursday. Senators are scheduled to leave Washington, D.C., on Thursday and will return at the beginning of next week.

While New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani admitted he would rank his Republican opponent Curtis Sliwa second if the general election used ranked-choice voting, Sliwa said Mamdani is going to ‘regret ever knowing the name Curtis Sliwa’ if the socialist candidate is elected. 

After Mamdani admitted he would rank Sliwa second in the spin room following Wednesday’s debate, Fox News Digital asked Sliwa if he would be willing to collaborate with Mamdani and help his administration if the 34-year-old assemblyman is elected mayor in less than two weeks. 

‘The only thing I would do if, God forbid, Zohran Mandami was the choice of the people, and we will leave it up to them, is I will organize resistance because I will improve. I will not move. Zohran Mamdani could bet that I will be his worst nightmare,’ Sliwa said. 

Sliwa said that unlike former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent candidate after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June, the founder and CEO of the Guardian Angels, isn’t going anywhere. 

‘Because, unlike Andrew Cuomo with his billionaire friends in the Hamptons, who said, ‘Oh, if Zohran’s elected, I’m fleeing to Florida,’ I’m not going anywhere. I was born in New York. They tried to kill me in New York. I’ll die in New York. I’ll be buried in New York,’ Sliwa confirmed.

‘If somehow Zohran Mandami is elected by the people, boy, he is gonna regret ever knowing the name of Curtis Sliwa because I’m gonna be on his case 24 hours a day,’ Sliwa said.

Sliwa also compared Mamdani to Pinocchio, but instead of his nose growing, ‘his smile just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.’

‘That’s how you know that Zohran Mamdani is telling another lie, another whopper, fantasy, rather than reality,’ Sliwa said, referencing Mamdani’s near-constant smile. 

When asked if Mamdani regretted his answer about ranking Sliwa second if the general election had ranked-choice voting, the Democratic socialist doubled down on his response. 

‘I believe it’s important to rank those who actually love New York City, and there was only one other candidate on that stage who seems to love this city,’ Mamdani said, in an apparent jab at Cuomo. 

With less than two weeks until Election Day, Mamdani and Sliwa have landed on unlikely common ground by rejecting billionaire influence in the New York City mayoral election.

Two billionaires, Red Apple Media CEO John Catsimatidis and hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman, have called on Sliwa to drop out of the mayoral race in order to clear a pathway to victory for Cuomo. 

‘The billionaires can conspire to pick their candidate,’ Sliwa said during a press conference in Manhattan on Monday. ‘I trust the people. They will make the decision. I will not drop out.’

Several blocks downtown at his own press conference Monday morning, Mamdani admitted his surprise at agreeing with Sliwa. 

‘I never thought I would say this, but here we are, where the only candidates who agree that billionaires shouldn’t control the future of this city are the Republican nominee and the Democratic nominee,’ Mamdani said. 

A recent Fox News survey of the mayoral race, conducted Oct. 10–14, asked voters about their second-choice candidate. If both Adams and Sliwa are out, the results show Mamdani keeping a significant lead, even as support for Cuomo increases. 

With Sliwa out, the poll found Mamdani would pick up 50% compared to 37% for Cuomo. But Sliwa has maintained for weeks that he has no intention of ending his mayoral campaign.

New York City mayoral contenders relentlessly criticized their opponents as they made their final pitch to voters Wednesday night in the last debate at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City before early voting starts Saturday. 

Election Day is coming up on Nov. 4, and with Mayor Eric Adams suspending his re-election campaign last month, New Yorkers are set to elect a new mayor to lead the city. 

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith is requesting to testify in open, public hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Fox News Digital has learned.

Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a letter Smith’s attorneys sent to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley Thursday afternoon, after both panels signaled interest in testimony from the former special counsel.

‘Given the many mischaracterizations of Mr. Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Mr. Smith respectfully requests the opportunity to testify in open hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees,’ Smith attorneys Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski wrote.

‘During the investigation of President Trump, Mr. Smith steadfastly adhered to established legal standards and Department of Justice guidelines, consistent with his approach throughout his career as a dedicated public servant,’ they wrote.

‘He is prepared to answer questions about the Special Counsel’s investigation and prosecution, but requires assurance from the Department of Justice that he will not be punished for doing so,’ they continued. ‘To that end, Mr. Smith needs guidance from the Department of Justice regarding federal grand jury secrecy requirements and authorization on the matters he may speak to regarding, among other things, Volume II of the Final Report of the Special Counsel, which is not publicly available.’

Smith’s attorneys also noted that in order to provide ‘full and accurate answers to your questions, Mr. Smith requires access to the Special Counsel files, which he no longer has the ability to access.’

‘With the guidance and access described above, Mr. Smith is available to testify in an open hearing at your earliest convenience,’ they wrote.

A source familiar told Fox News Digital that Smith’s attorneys are planning to officially seek guidance from the Department of Justice on the matter.

The letter from Smith’s attorneys comes after Jordan, R-Ohio, requested Smith appear for a closed-door transcribed interview and provide all records from his work related to President Donald Trump.

The letter also comes after Grassley, R-Iowa, and nearly two dozen Senate Republicans demanded that the Department of Justice and FBI release documents on Smith’s decision to subpoena telecommunications companies for phone records of a number of Senate Republicans during his probe into Jan. 6, 2021.

Fox News Digital exclusively reported earlier in October that Smith tracked the private communications and phone calls of GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania as part of his ‘Arctic Frost’ investigation.

An official said the records were collected in 2023 by Smith and his team after subpoenaing major telephone providers. 

An FBI official told Fox News Digital that Smith and his team tracking the senators were able to see which phone numbers they called, the location the phone call originated and the location where it was received.

A source said the calls were likely in reference to the vote to certify the 2020 election. 

Smith, though, called his decision to subpoena several Republican lawmakers’ phone records ‘entirely proper’ and consistent with Justice Department policy.

‘As described by various Senators, the toll data collection was narrowly tailored and limited to the four days from January 4, 2021 to January 7, 2021, with a focus on telephonic activity during the period immediately surrounding the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol,’ Smith’s lawyers wrote Tuesday to Grassley. 

Smith was appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022.

Smith, after months of investigating, charged Trump in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., in his 2020 election case, but after Trump was elected president, Smith sought to dismiss the case. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted that request. 

Smith’s case cost taxpayers more than $50 million. 

‘Jack Smith certainly has a lot of answering to do, but first, Congress needs to have all the facts at its disposal,’ Grassley told Fox News Digital Thursday. ‘Hearings should follow once the investigative foundation has been firmly set, which is why I’m actively working with the DOJ and FBI to collect all relevant records that Mr. Smith has had years to become familiar with.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Jordan for comment and has yet to receive a reply. 

Fox News’ Ashley Oliver contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump is ‘not interested’ in making peace with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the White House said Thursday, as tensions between Washington and Bogotá continue to escalate.

‘I don’t think we’re seeing de-escalation from the unhinged leader of Colombia right now,’ press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a White House briefing when asked what Petro could do to reduce tensions.

‘I don’t think the president, frankly, is interested in that at this point,’ Leavitt added.

Relations between the two countries have sharply deteriorated after Petro accused the U.S. of killing innocent fishermen during strikes targeting narco-traffickers in the Caribbean.

Following Petro’s accusation, Trump announced plans to cut off all counter-narcotics aid to Colombia and impose new tariffs on the country.

Trump lashed out at his South American counterpart, calling him a ‘thug’ who is ‘making a lot of drugs.’

‘They’re doing very poorly, Colombia. They make cocaine. They have cocaine factories … and he better watch it or we’ll take very serious action against him and his country,’ Trump said. ‘What he has led his country into is a death trap.’

Petro fired back, threatening to sue Trump in U.S. court.

‘From the slanders that have been cast against me in the territory of the United States by high-ranking officials, I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the American justice system,’ Petro wrote on X. ‘I will always stand against genocides and murders by those in power in the Caribbean.’

‘When our help is required to fight against drug trafficking, American society will have it. We will fight against the drug traffickers with the states that want our help,’ he added.

Petro has sought closer ties with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro while distancing Colombia — a major non-NATO ally — from the United States.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has conducted eight strikes on vessels believed to be transporting narcotics from Latin America. The world is now watching to see whether Trump will follow through on threats to strike Venezuelan soil — or even target Maduro himself, directly or indirectly.

Trump confirmed that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela and also warned Colombia could face similar consequences.

‘Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social, ‘or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, the Colombian Embassy in Washington sought to ease tensions, saying the U.S. representative in Bogotá recently met with Petro and that ‘both sides agreed to continue dialogue in a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect. The meeting reaffirmed the shared commitment towards efforts against illicit drug trafficking, grounded in accuracy, coordination, and security.’