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President Donald Trump celebrated Halloween with a Great Gatsby-themed party as millions of Americans prepared to lose their SNAP benefits amid the government shutdown.
On Friday, Oct. 31, Trump, 79, hosted a Halloween party inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel at his Palm Beach, Fla., estate, Mar-a-Lago. The president sat with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Roaring ’20s bash, which was complete with feathers and flapper dresses, photos show.
The official theme of the lavish event was The Great Gatsby, the Roaring ’20s and “a little party never killed nobody,” according to reports from White House correspondents Danny Kemp and Kellie Meyer of AFP News Agency and NewsNation, respectively.
Footage of the event shared by Meyer on X shows Trump and Rubio, 54, smiling and chatting at a table with other guests. At a certain point in the evening, all members of the press were ordered to leave Mar-a-Lago, Meyer reported.
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Trump hosted guests at his Palm Beach property as millions of Americans braced to lose their federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, sometimes referred to as “food stamps,” the following day amid the ongoing government shutdown.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned that there would not be enough funding for the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits to receive their money on Saturday, Nov. 1. (The program provides one in eight people in the U.S. with money to buy food.)
Trump spent Nov. 1 golfing at his Palm Beach golf club, Meyer reported on X.
The timing of the Roaring ‘20s-themed party inspired criticism from politicians, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy.
“Donald Trump hosted a Great Gatsby party while SNAP benefits were about to disappear for 42 million Americans,” Newsom wrote on X, reposting Kemp’s photo from inside the event. “He does not give a damn about you.”
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The government shutdown began on Oct. 1 and is the second-longest on record. The largest point of contention is related to the Affordable Care Act, with Democrats seeking to quickly extend ACA tax credits to prevent healthcare premiums from dramatically rising for millions of Americans. Despite overwhelming public support, Republicans have refused to budge on the issue, saying they can negotiate after the government reopens.
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Along with the loss of federal SNAP benefits for millions, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are furloughed or working without pay amid the government shutdown. Longtime Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee LaShanda Palmer is one of them. She has not been paid since the shutdown began, she previously told PEOPLE.
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“I have a car note, I have insurance, I have a grandchild that I have guardianship over, who’s 6,” as well as two of her five children who live with her, she told PEOPLE. Palmer, who works at the Philadelphia International Airport, also has a $1,375 rent payment due on Nov. 1, along with overdrawn checking and savings accounts and mounting overdraft fees.
“It is extremely hard,” said the lead transportation security officer, one of an estimated 1.4 million federal employees furloughed or working without pay while the federal government is locked in a shutdown.
Elaborating on her situation amid the shutdown — the second she’s endured, including the last one during Trump’s first term — Palmer told PEOPLE, “I don’t want to get an eviction notice. I’m in a position right now, come Nov. 1, where my rent may not get paid because I don’t have [rent money] to pay it.”
“And it’s not that I don’t work for it because I am working for it,” she added. “I should have it.”
