This week, Donald Trump tried to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, and his administration also shut states out of Medicaid payment portals. It was a huge catastrophe, obviously, and dozens of states immediately sued the Trump administration. One judge ordered a temporary halt on the spending freeze. And now Donald Trump and his administration have backed down:
The White House on Wednesday rescinded a directive that froze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans after the order led to mass confusion and legal challenges that accused the Trump administration of violating the law.
The order, issued Monday night, was an attempt to purge the government of what President Trump has called a “woke” ideology. A federal judge in the District of Columbia temporarily blocked it Tuesday afternoon, but the lack of clarity sent schools, hospitals, nonprofits and other organizations scrambling to understand if they had lost their financial support from the government.
On Wednesday, Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director for the Office of Management and Budget, told federal agencies that the memo freezing aid had been “rescinded.” In a brief notice, Mr. Vaeth said: “If you have questions about implementing the president’s executive orders, please contact your agency general counsel.”
The decision to pull the directive was a significant reversal and the first major capitulation by Mr. Trump since returning to the White House.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, wrote on social media that “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze.” She said the president’s executive orders on federal funding “remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”
She appeared to be referring to the fact that the executive orders Mr. Trump signed last week — which directed government agencies to review and eliminate spending on so-called woke ideologies — remain in force.
The thing about the new nitwit press secretary is that her hissy fit on social media was cited, in real time, in one of the emergency court hearings and decisions, as AOC pointed out in the tweet below. In the original thread, Karoline Leavitt’s comments made the judge in the case strengthen his ruling on the restraining order for the funding freeze – the judge was going to make it a temporary restraining order (on the funding freeze) given the lack of clarity, but now the restraining order will be expanded on a case by case basis as funding will still be blocked, per the press secretary’s comments.
In case you’re having a bad day at work, remember that at least you’re not Trump’s @PressSec who tweets were so bad today she earned the entire administration a federal restraining order.
Keep talking and tweeting, girl! You’re doing great! 👍🏽 https://t.co/HgndHpoZ1h
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 29, 2025
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
-
- United States President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the East Room of the White House on January 29, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The Laken Riley Act is the first bill signed by President Trump in his new administration. It is named after a slain Georgia nursing student and would require the detention of unauthorized immigrants that have been accused of theft and violent crimes Featuring: Donald J Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 29 Jan 2025 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
-
- United States President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the East Room of the White House on January 29, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The Laken Riley Act is the first bill signed by President Trump in his new administration. It is named after a slain Georgia nursing student and would require the detention of unauthorized immigrants that have been accused of theft and violent crimes Featuring: Donald J Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 29 Jan 2025 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
-
- United States President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the East Room of the White House on January 29, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The Laken Riley Act is the first bill signed by President Trump in his new administration. It is named after a slain Georgia nursing student and would require the detention of unauthorized immigrants that have been accused of theft and violent crimes Featuring: Donald J Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 29 Jan 2025 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
A second judge from Rhode Island blocked it again. This joke President wants people to go hungry , go jobless and die. What a disgusting time and disgusting scumbag.
The policy hasn’t been rescinded, just the memo announcing implementation. That means absolutely nothing but Trump’s trying to cover his ass while still destroying everything because they didn’t expect the severe, immediate backlash or the TRO. The memo itself, not just its content, is extremely problematic and unconstitutional because it failed to meet the notice requirements of the 14th Amendment. It didn’t come close to meeting the notice requirements and Trump made no other attempts to give notice to grant and loan recipients that he was turning off funding
The executive order has not been rescinded, but the memo directing the implementation has been. It is the memo which has teeth. Therefore, the idiot press secretary is wrong, quelle surprise. The executive order is worthless without the memo. Trump and his minions 100% backtracked. So they are clearly relying on the public’s ignorance to pretend that trump can just write an executive order and things get changed. The relevant departments then have to issue the official directives (memo). Without these, executive orders don’t mean squat.
But the effects of the immediate freeze will have knock-on effects – detrimental ones – for months to come, as will the continued confusion and misinformation being spread by so-called mainstream media.
Source: lawyers on Bluesky.
The memo itself is unconstitutional because it doesn’t meet the 14th amendment requirements of notice and due process before a taking. Each grant or loan recipient must receive direct written notice, with time frames, of when their funding will stop, even for a so-called “pause to review.” That cannot be done by a general memo posted on a website or sent to reporters. Lawyer on Celebitchy who has dealt with funding for federal programs.
You are absolutely correct LightPurple. Thank you for adding this.
It hasn’t been rescinded, just the memo. The freeze is still in effect. A lot of Medicaid patients are being denied medical care because of it
See my comment above Sassy. The freeze is no longer in effect, because the memo dictating it has been rescinded. Without the original memo, the executive order means nothing. Trump could issue a million executive orders, but without a directive (memo) to agencies from the various departments, they mean nothing. People think that executive orders are a magic wand, because they only see and hear the hoopla surrounding the signing. However, there are several things which must happen in concert with that for the order to take effect.
That’s why the press sec’s comments were so stupid. They just didn’t make sense but made it obvious the WH’s intent to freeze funding was still there, they were just scrambling to not look like they were capitulating. What a mess.
This is straight out of the HF playbook. They don’t care about rules or laws. Call it woke and pull the funding. Get sued and drag it out for years in court. Rinse, repeat.
The goal is to get this to the Supreme Court and have them rule in his favor so that he can do whatever he wants without anyone stopping him in any way.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-omb-funding-freeze-courts_n_679a8d92e4b02e7053bf8d23
I do wonder do they think that a country that has more guns than people are going to just go, sure, take my money and healthcare and nothing is going to happen? This is crazy pants to me that he keeps doing illegal things and only the governors and AGs of blue states are fighting back.
I don’t think this President cares if people go hungry, jobless, or die. I think what he wants is to sow chaos and confusion and fear. This way people will shut down and stop paying attention and then his true agenda to become dictator can be enforced.
Cruelty is the point, first and foremost. Secondly, much of this is a useful distraction from the gutting of the government that is going on behind the scenes—the removal of IGs, the firing of career-long employees at the State Department, the attempts by Mango sympathizers to purchase TikTok—this is all very calculated, and if collateral damage occurs ….
This is exactly what they said they were going to do. SMH because “the price of eggs”.
as others have said, the cruelty is the point. As is total control – he wants every penny of federal funding to go through him, with his approval.
And to echo other points above – yes, he wants people to die. He wants the poor and the old and sick to either die or to be completely beholden to him for their survival. It’s terrifying and disgusting.
Aoc had more great thoughts about this on Bluesky. These people may be monsters but they are still sloppy, fairly incompetent, and fighting within the admin. There are a lot of practical implications in this for resisting.
I think the only thing that might save us from the Nazis is the shear incompetence.
And government workers and military personnel who aren’t having this destructive mess…
Yes because feeding little kids at their preschools and elderly people who aren’t able to leave their homes on their own is so WOKE. How dare they need food to survive? Those radical leftist 3 year olds!
Shock and awe (plus confusion) tactics. His whole first week in office – create chaos and confusion and fear to paralyze your opponents and the general populace. So outrageous and fast-paced that the media can’t keep up. Our country is in deep trouble and I don’t have confidence in the Democratic party or traditional media to stand up to him.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 “And in today’s episode of ‘Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down”’…🤣🤣🤣🤣