A federal judge appointed by Barack Obama struck down the Trump administration's effort to stop food stamp recipients from spending taxpayer-funded benefits on soda, candy, and energy drinks, ruling that the USDA overstepped its authority by redefining what Congress meant by "food."
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who has sat on the bench in Washington, D.C., since her 2011 appointment, issued the ruling Monday. It blocks SNAP purchase restrictions the USDA had approved in five states, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, where pilot waivers would have barred benefits from covering sugary products.
The decision hands a concrete legal setback to the administration's "Make America Healthy Again" campaign. And it arrives at a moment when the federal bench has become the single most reliable obstacle to executive action, regardless of how broadly popular the underlying policy may be. The White House made clear it has no intention of accepting the ruling as settled.
Jackson's written opinion rested on a straightforward statutory argument. Congress already defined what qualifies as "food" under SNAP, and that definition broadly covers any food or food product intended for home consumption. The USDA, Jackson found, cannot use administrative waivers to narrow that definition, no matter how well-intentioned the goal.
Fox News Digital reported that Jackson wrote in her ruling:
"[Congress] set out clearly the type of experimental projects that could be tested to address the unquestionably serious health issues attributed to the rise of obesity in the population in general and particularly the low-income population. But it did not invite the Secretary to ignore its directives by trying to advance those ends under the banner of 'efficiency' or administrative improvements."
Put plainly: the judge acknowledged the obesity crisis is real, then told the administration it picked the wrong legal tool to address it.
The Washington Examiner reported that Jackson also found the USDA failed to comply with its own regulation requiring a 30-day Federal Register notice before implementing pilot projects with significant public impact. That procedural failure gave the court a second independent basis for blocking the waivers.
Jackson stated in the ruling: "The federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals. But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way."
The lawsuit was filed by SNAP recipients in the five affected states, represented by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice and the law firm Shinder Cantor Lerner. AP News reported that the restrictions had been approved or planned across 23 states as part of the broader "Make America Healthy Again" push, a program affecting nearly 39 million Americans who rely on SNAP.
The plaintiffs from those five states argued that some restricted foods were necessary to manage health conditions such as diabetes and allergies, Newsmax reported. The USDA had approved waivers covering candy, soft drinks, and energy drinks, though the full scope of restricted items beyond those categories remains unclear from available filings.
Whether the ruling applies only to the five plaintiff states or reaches all 23 states with approved waivers is one of several open legal questions the decision leaves unresolved.
The White House response was swift and unambiguous. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital:
"Amid a chronic disease epidemic, President Trump was elected with a resounding mandate to Make America Healthy Again. This administration has rightfully put real food at the center of SNAP to promote healthier options for families in need. This will not be the final say on the matter."
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted her own reaction on X, calling the decision the work of "an activist judge" and framing the policy in terms most taxpayers would find hard to argue with. Rollins wrote: "SNAP is for food, not sugar bombs fueling obesity, diabetes, and skyrocketing healthcare costs for low-income families. Taxpayers shouldn't subsidize junk food and drinks at the expense of American health."
The pattern of Obama-era judicial appointees blocking Trump administration actions has become a defining feature of this presidency. A federal judge recently blocked Trump's proposed $100,000 H-1B visa fee, calling it an unauthorized tax, one of many cases in which courts have intervened on executive policy.
A USDA spokesperson reinforced the administration's position: "The idea that taxpayer funds should not be used to purchase junk food should not be controversial. USDA will not be backing down from the fight to Make America Healthy Again, including for families and communities reliant on SNAP."
Fox News Digital also reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment. No response was noted.
What makes this ruling especially notable is the policy's bipartisan pedigree. In 2011, the same year Jackson took the bench, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked the Obama administration's USDA to let the city block SNAP recipients from using benefits to buy sugary drinks. Obama's own USDA rejected the request, stating the proposal did not clearly demonstrate whether the restriction would improve health outcomes.
So the idea has now been rejected under both a Democratic and a Republican administration, albeit for different reasons. Obama's USDA said the evidence wasn't there. Jackson's ruling says the legal authority isn't there. The net result is the same: taxpayer dollars continue flowing to purchases that virtually no nutritionist would defend.
The administration has invested significant political capital in the broader initiative. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary Rollins have traveled to multiple states to work with governors on healthier food choices. In March 2025, Kennedy and West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey were photographed in Martinsburg, W.Va., holding a letter of intent to request changes to the state's SNAP and food dye legislation. That kind of cooperative federalism, governors voluntarily requesting waivers, the USDA approving them, is exactly what Jackson's ruling now forecloses.
The administration's stated next legal step remains unclear. Whether the USDA will appeal, seek legislative action from Congress, or pursue an alternative regulatory pathway is an open question. Just The News noted that Jackson's ruling specifically found Rollins exceeded her legal authority by redefining "food" as Congress had established it, a finding that could complicate any appeal unless the administration can identify a different statutory basis.
The broader judicial trend is hard to miss. Federal judges have vacated Trump immigration policies and ordered agencies to resume processing. They have extended blocks on anti-weaponization funding while demanding sworn declarations from senior officials. The SNAP ruling fits comfortably into a pattern where district courts, often presided over by judges appointed by Democratic presidents, serve as a rolling veto on executive branch policy.
The policy question at the center of this case is not complicated. SNAP serves roughly 42 million low-income Americans. The program's statutory definition of "food" was written decades ago and makes no distinction between a bag of apples and a case of Mountain Dew. Obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and diet-related chronic disease impose staggering costs on Medicaid and the broader health-care system, costs that fall disproportionately on the same low-income populations SNAP is designed to help.
More than 20 states asked the USDA for permission to run pilot programs restricting junk food purchases. Governors from both parties have expressed interest. The administration approved those requests. And a single district judge in Washington shut the whole thing down.
Jackson may well be right on the law. Congress wrote a broad definition of "food," and the executive branch may not have the statutory authority to narrow it through waivers alone. If that is the case, the remedy is obvious: Congress should act. Rewrite the statute. Give states explicit authority to run these pilots. Let the data settle the question Bloomberg raised fifteen years ago.
But until that happens, the status quo holds. And the status quo means that a program funded by working taxpayers will continue subsidizing the very products driving the chronic disease epidemic it was never designed to fuel. Courts can block executive action on procedural grounds all day long. What they cannot do is make the underlying problem go away.
When taxpayers are footing the grocery bill, asking that the money go toward actual nutrition is not radical. It is common sense, the kind that apparently requires an act of Congress to survive a courtroom.
