A federal judge appointed by President Barack Obama struck down the Trump administration's effort to stop food stamp recipients from spending taxpayer dollars on soda, candy, and energy drinks, and the White House made clear it has no intention of accepting the ruling as settled law.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who has sat on the bench in Washington, D.C., since her 2011 appointment by Obama, ruled Monday that the USDA lacks authority to waive or rewrite Congress's statutory definition of "food" under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The decision blocks waivers the Department of Agriculture had already approved in more than 20 states.

The ruling lands squarely on one of the administration's signature health priorities, the "Make America Healthy Again" initiative championed by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And it raises a pointed question: if the federal government cannot even decide that candy and soda fall outside the definition of nutritious food, what exactly can it do to address the chronic disease crisis draining public coffers?

What the judge said, and what she didn't

Jackson's written ruling acknowledged the seriousness of the health problem the administration set out to address. But she concluded Congress had drawn the boundaries, and the USDA could not redraw them on its own. Fox News Digital reported the key passage from the opinion:

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."

In plain terms, Jackson ruled that because Congress already defined what counts as "food" under SNAP, the Agriculture Secretary cannot override that definition through waiver authority. The lawsuit was brought by SNAP recipients in five states, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, represented by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice and the law firm Shinder Cantor Lerner.

What the ruling does not make clear is whether it applies only to those five states or reaches all 20-plus states where USDA had approved similar waivers. That ambiguity matters. If the decision's scope is narrow, the administration may have room to maneuver. If it is broad, the entire waiver framework collapses until Congress acts or an appeals court intervenes.

The White House pushes back hard

The administration's response was swift and unequivocal. White House 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."

That last sentence, "This will not be the final say", signals an appeal, a legislative push, or both. The administration has invested significant political capital in the MAHA agenda. Rollins and Kennedy have traveled together to multiple states, meeting with governors and promoting healthier food choices within federal nutrition programs. West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey, for instance, held a letter of intent alongside Kennedy in Martinsburg on March 28, 2025, signaling the state's commitment to SNAP and food dye reforms.

Rollins herself fired back on X, calling Jackson "an activist judge" and framing the fight in terms taxpayers understand:

"An activist judge just blocked our commonsense restriction on using SNAP benefits for soda and junk. 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."

A separate USDA spokesperson reinforced the message: "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."

The irony Obama's own USDA created

Here is where the history gets uncomfortable for the judge's ideological allies. The concept of restricting SNAP purchases of sugary products is not some fringe conservative invention. In 2011, the same year Jackson took the bench, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked the Obama administration's own USDA to allow the city to block SNAP recipients from buying sugary drinks with their benefits.

Obama's USDA rejected Bloomberg's request, but not because the idea was unconstitutional or beyond the agency's authority. The department said the proposal did not clearly demonstrate whether the restriction would actually improve health outcomes. That is a policy objection, not a legal one. It suggests the Obama-era USDA believed it could approve such restrictions, it simply chose not to.

Fast-forward more than a decade, and an Obama-appointed judge now rules the USDA never had that power in the first place. The tension is hard to miss. If the authority never existed, why did Obama's USDA treat Bloomberg's request as a policy question rather than dismissing it as legally impossible? The administration's critics will need to reconcile that history before claiming the current effort was always doomed.

This pattern, where Obama and Biden-era decisions face belated accountability, has become a recurring feature of the current political landscape.

What's really at stake

The policy question underneath the legal fight is straightforward. SNAP costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars annually. The program exists to ensure low-income families can eat. The administration argues, and plenty of public health experts across the political spectrum have argued for years, that subsidizing soda, candy, and energy drinks with public money does not serve that purpose. It fuels obesity, diabetes, and the downstream healthcare costs that fall disproportionately on the same low-income communities SNAP is meant to help.

Nobody disputes that chronic disease is a crisis. Jackson herself acknowledged "the unquestionably serious health issues attributed to the rise of obesity" in her ruling. The disagreement is over who gets to act.

Jackson says Congress must act. The administration says it already had waiver authority and used it. The legal question will almost certainly move to the D.C. Circuit on appeal, and possibly to the Supreme Court if the circuit courts split.

The broader fight over executive authority and its limits is one the current Congress will have to grapple with regardless of how the courts rule.

Congress holds the cards, if it wants them

If the ruling stands, the ball lands in Congress's lap. Legislators could amend the SNAP statute to explicitly authorize states to restrict purchases of non-nutritive items. That would resolve the legal question entirely. Whether the political will exists in a closely divided Congress is another matter.

The administration has allies among Republican governors who have already signed on to the waiver program. More than 20 states sought and received USDA approval for restrictions. That is not a narrow coalition. It reflects a broad, bipartisan appetite, at the state level, at least, for common-sense guardrails on how public nutrition dollars are spent.

The current administration has shown a willingness to address problems previous administrations left unresolved, from infrastructure neglect to regulatory overreach. The SNAP fight fits that pattern.

Open questions the ruling leaves behind

Several important details remain unclear. The exact case name and docket number were not specified in available reporting. Whether the ruling's scope reaches beyond the five plaintiff states to the full roster of 20-plus states with approved waivers is unresolved. The administration has not yet announced the specific court to which it plans to appeal, though the D.C. Circuit is the natural venue.

Fox News Digital noted it reached out to HHS for comment. Whether the department responded was not reported. Kennedy's office has been a visible partner in the MAHA push, and its silence, or its statement, if one was issued, could shape the next phase of the legal and political fight.

The question of government accountability for past executive decisions cuts in multiple directions here. The Obama-era USDA's refusal to act on Bloomberg's request left the policy vacuum that the current administration tried to fill. Now a judge appointed by that same president has ruled the vacuum can only be filled by Congress.

The bottom line

Judge Jackson's ruling is a procedural setback, not a policy vindication. Nobody in the courtroom argued that buying soda and candy with taxpayer money is good nutrition policy. The judge simply said the USDA picked the wrong tool. The administration says it will find another one.

Meanwhile, the status quo holds. Taxpayers in more than 20 states will continue subsidizing junk food purchases for the foreseeable future, not because anyone thinks it is wise, but because a single judge decided the executive branch moved before Congress did.

When everyone agrees the house is on fire but the courts say you filled out the wrong permit to grab the hose, the system is not protecting anyone. It is protecting itself.