Washington According to a new White House letter a source gave to NBC News, President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday revoked an order that placed a broad suspension on the majority of federal grants and loans in the face of intense criticism.
The Office of Management and Budget ordered the revocation, which was verified Wednesday by a senior administration official.
The first order caused uncertainty and mayhem throughout Washington, but a federal district judge temporarily stopped it Tuesday night. Soon after the memo was made public on Wednesday, Democrats, who fiercely opposed the White House decision, applauded its revocation.
“Americans fought back and Donald Trump backed off,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate from New York. “Though the Trump Administration failed in this tactic, it s no secret that they will try to find another, and when they do, it will again be Senate Democrats there to call it out, fight back, and defend American families.”
The first order from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) came departments to “temporarily pauseall activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
The administration would be able to examine which initiatives were “consistent” with Trump’s agenda during the halt, according to the memo. Although direct payments to individuals, Social Security, and Medicare were not intended to be impacted, it was unclear which help would be stopped due to the memo’s ambiguous wording.
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the memo’s withdrawal was an effort to “end any confusion.”
She commented on X, “This isNOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze.” “The OMB memo is merely being revoked. Why? to clear up any misunderstanding the court’s order may have caused. The President’s executive orders on federal funds are still in full effect and will be strictly followed.
The White House tried to explain the exclusions, including Medicaid, throughout Tuesday, but by that time, there was a lot of misunderstanding and reports of individuals and organizations not being able to access the systems they needed to get their federal assistance.
For instance, nonprofit organizations that addressed homelessness and health care told NBC News that online portals to collect Medicaid payments were momentarily unavailable, and they could not access websites to withdraw money.
A progressive nonprofit organization called Democracy Forward sued OMB, and Judge Loren Ali Khan issued an injunction temporarily halting the freeze’s implementation.
In a statement, Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, said, “We condemn the Trump-Vance administration’s harmful and callous approach of unleashing chaos and harm on the American people, even as we hope this will allow millions of people in communities across the country to breathe a sigh of relief.” “To protect the American people, our team will keep bringing swift legal actions, and we will use the legal system to make sure that federal funding is restored.”