President Donald Trump‘s choice to wait federal grant money set off shockwaves in states, nonprofit organizations, and the social world, with opponents calling the president’s Monday night move illegal and unethical.
WHAT TRUMP’S ECONOMIC PICKS COULD FORETELL FOR SECOND ADMINISTRATION
The letter from Vaeth’s letter reads,” The British citizens elected Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and gave him the authority to make the most of every dollar spent on national taxes.” According to the President,” This memo requires Federal authorities to identify and examine all Federal financial aid applications and supporting activities in accordance with the President’s policies and requirements.”
Vaeth claimed that the delay will give the White House “time to review company programs and determine the best employs of the money for those applications in accordance with the law and the President’s priorities.”
The Trump presidency did free certain recipient programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and “payments to individuals”, from the delay, but many states, including Hawaii and Illinois, reported being locked out of the Medicaid site Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, federal lawmakers and nonprofit groups quickly denounced Trump’s action, with some Democrats likening the move to policy under Nazi Germany. During his campaign for president in 2024, former presidents Joe Biden and Kamala Harris consistently compared Trump to dictator Adolf Hitler, including former vice president Kamala Harris.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Tuesday morning that, “in a blitzkrieg, Trump is trying to collapse our democracy — , and probably our economy — and seize control”.
Senate Democrats planned to discuss Trump’s pardons of rioters on January 6, 2021, in a press conference on Tuesday morning, but they quickly announced they would focus instead on his funding decision.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY ) told reporters that Trump’s move amounted to” cruelty” and “lawlessness”.
Every one of our offices has received calls from panicked employees, according to Schumer. No matter how much he may think he does, this is a heist carried out on a national scale. We will use every means at our disposal to combat this, and the president does not have the authority to circumvent the law.
Schumer added that states would soon be challenging the president in court after speaking with Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, earlier on Tuesday.
James stated that her office” will be taking imminent legal action against this administration’s unconstitutional pause on federal funding.”
FULL LIST OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS, ACTIONS, AND PROCLAMATIONS TRUMP HAS MADE AS PRESIDENT
Meanwhile, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA ) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the vice chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate and House Appropriations committees, respectively, wrote a letter to the White House on Monday night calling for administration officials to stop the pause.
” We write with extreme alarm about the Administration’s efforts to undermine Congress’s power of the purse, threaten our national security, and deny resources for states, localities, American families, and businesses”, the letter reads. ” The scope of what you are ordering is breathtaking, unprecedented, and will have devastating consequences across the country. We write to you today to demand that you follow the law and the Constitution and that all federal resources are provided in accordance with the law.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY ) expressed concern “both about the legality of the president trying to stop or freeze laws that were expressly passed by Congress and the harm this action will entail for farmers, business owners, and struggling families.”
Attorney General of California Rob Bonta stated that the state is reviewing Trump’s” sweeping” directive but that “any pause would hurt families and pose a threat to public health & safety.”
” We’re prepared to protect CA’s people and programs from]Trump’s ] reckless and dangerous actions”, Bonta posted Tuesday morning on X.
In response to the recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area, Trump has been particularly critical of state leadership in California. Before entering office, the president reignited his long-standing feud with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA ) over the state’s water conservation policies, frequently suggesting he would withhold federal disaster funding without reforms from the Newsom administration.
Trump conducted a survey of the Los Angeles cleanup effort on Friday alongside Newsom, but the governor of California did not respond to inquiries about Trump’s suspension of grant funding.
Attorney General of Arizona, Kris Mayes, echoed this sentiment about the pause, which “risks disaster”.
According to her on X,” Children could miss out on school lunches, victims of crime could lose critical assistance, and law enforcement agencies could be defunded across the country if it stands.”
Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, called Trump’s pause a “potential 5-alarm fire for nonprofits and the people and communities they serve”.
” From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to closing homeless shelters, halting food assistance, reducing safety from domestic violence, and shutting down suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives”, Yentel said in a statement. ” This order could decimate thousands of organizations and leave neighbors without the services they need,” he warned.
Meals on Wheels Association of America, a non-profit organization, predicted that the pause would “presumably halt service to millions of vulnerable seniors who have no other means of purchasing or preparing meals.”
Local Meals on Wheels providers are currently experiencing chaos because they are unsure whether they should be serving meals today, according to a statement from the organization.
Democrats and the media are being asked to “use every procedural maneuver to grind things to a stop” and “allow public pressure to build,” according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots activism movement.
” Not to be alarmist, but this is the most radical presidential action I’ve ever seen”, Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin said in a statement. ” He’s straight up seizing Congress ‘ budget power. If the mad king’s whims dictate what is enforced and where money goes, do laws matter?
We need Dems to use every procedural maneuver to make people angry, and we need Dems to use every media tool to raise alarm and build public pressure. Shut it the f*** down.”
Topher Shapiro, an associate OMB director during the Biden administration, said Vaeth’s memo reads” like a hostage note written directly by Russ Vought, who is not confirmed” and that” OMB would believe this is illegal.”
” This is cruel,” Shapiro wrote in a statement, noting the pause will affect opioid prevention and mental health funding, resources for community health centers, suicide prevention programs, HIV and AIDS treatment, and grants to help states tackle the growing bird flu epidemic, which is driving up national egg prices to historic highs.
Russ Vought continued,” He is illegally carrying out his ideological agenda with greatest harm to the most vulnerable, including many in the working class and rural communities who voted for Trump.”
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Vought will likely be confirmed in the first few days, but Democrats vehemently opposed his nomination to take the OMB a second time. He has pledged to continue working with Trump to reduce federal spending through the use of impoundment, which was effectively outlawed by 1970s legislation.
Vought, Trump allies, and the president himself argue that the presidency has a constitutional duty to stop funding that violates the country’s interests when it interferes with the government’s interests.
