The action comes two days after states sued the federal agency that administers SNAP benefits. Funds were set to stop flowing Saturday.

President Trump said he wouldn't pay food stamp benefits until government reopens, contradicting the USDA and potentially defying court order.

The USDA notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through SNAP.

USDA reminds retailers they must give SNAP and non-SNAP shoppers the same prices, with sales tax exempt only for SNAP purchases.

None of this is normal. Food-stamp benefits have never been cut like this in the current program’s more-than-60-year history. “It is a significant inflection point in the program’s history,” Christopher Bosso, a political scientist at Northeastern University who wrote a book on SNAP, told me. “Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.”