A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to fund food stamps in full for roughly 42 million low-income Americans, after admonishing the government for delaying aid under the nation’s largest anti-hunger program during the shutdown.

The order, issued by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, marked his second legal rebuke of the administration for actions that threatened to leave millions of Americans at risk of financial hardship.

Reading his directive from the bench after a short but tense hearing, Judge McConnell sharply criticized the administration for ignoring his original order last week to quickly restart payments for SNAP, or food stamps. He attributed the delay, in part, to an attempt by President Trump and his aides to disrupt the program “for political reasons.”

At one point, Judge McConnell pointed to comments by Mr. Trump, who had threatened this week to halt all food stamp payments until the end of the shutdown. While the White House later tried to walk back those remarks, the judge still saw the president’s ultimatum as evidence he had failed to comply with court instructions.

“This should never happen in America,” the judge said, as he warned that millions of poor families could go hungry in the absence of reliable federal aid. He gave the government until Friday to make the SNAP payments.

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