Trump Freeze on All Federal Grants Is His Most Violent Power Grab Yet

Trump has ordered a far-reaching pause on all federal loans and grants, putting multiple organizations in jeopardy and causing widespread confusion throughout the federal government.

Office of Management and Budget Director Matthew J. Vaeth issued a two-page memo Monday stating that federal agencies need to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance,” and any other programs that included “D.E.I., woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.” The funding pause starts on Tuesday and will go through February. The rest of the details are unclear. 

“The use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism and Green New Deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” Vaeth continued in his memo.

But the Green New Deal was never an actual law, and how much federal funding is actually going toward “transgenderism”? The budget freeze is apparently making exceptions for people receiving “personal assistance,” but who falls under that umbrella is also up in the air. Will farmers and small-business owners be shut out of federal funding now too?  

Perhaps most troubling, the order seems to violate the impoundment law, which prevents presidents from withholding funding already approved by Congress. 

“This order is a potential five-alarm fire for nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve,” said Diane Yentel, the chief executive of the National Council of Nonprofits.

“From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to halting food assistance, safety from domestic violence, and closing suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives,” she continued. “This order could decimate thousands of organizations and leave neighbors without the services they need.”

Donald Trump’s Justice Department has already fired more than a dozen employees who were involved in the forty-seventh president’s criminal prosecution.

The mass firing targeted career prosecutors who had worked directly with former special counsel Jack Smith as he developed two cases against Trump: one on the forty-fifth president’s alleged retention of classified documents after he left the White House, and another on Trump’s involvement in the January 6 riots. Smith’s team had at least 40 attorneys investigating Trump after the end of his first term.

The matter boiled down to “trust” for the incoming administration, which claimed that the prosecutors had weaponized the government against the MAGA leader and had no place in a second Trump term.

“In light of their actions, the Acting Attorney General does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the President’s agenda. This action is consistent with the mission of ending the weaponization of government,” a spokesman told The Washington Post in a statement Monday.

The highly unusual firings are effective immediately, according to the Associated Press, which noted that rank-and-file prosecutors are rarely terminated by incoming administrations for their involvement in sensitive investigations.

Smith concluded his investigations shortly after Trump won the November election, citing statutes that prevent criminal investigations of a sitting president. He resigned from the Justice Department earlier this month, and the first volume of his final report—which focused on the details of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election—was released the following week under the direction of former Attorney General Merrick Garland. One line from the report plainly stated that Smith had obtained enough evidence to convict Trump had he not been reelected to the Oval Office.

The firing of Smith’s team follows a major reshuffling of key officials at the Justice Department, which last week conducted a leadership shakeup by reassigning as many as 20 senior officials to different departments.

The Quakers are suing Trump’s Department of Homeland Security for allowing ICE raids in places of worship.

The lawsuit, filed in Maryland on Monday by multiple different Quaker groups from across the country, states that “the very threat of [immigration] enforcement deters congregants from attending services, especially members of immigrant communities,” and notes that the raids infringe on religious freedom.

“A week ago today, President Trump swore an oath to defend the Constitution and yet today religious institutions that have existed since the 1600s in our country are having to go to court to challenge what is a violation of every individual’s constitutional right to worship and associate freely,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the Quaker groups in court. “The troubling nature of the policy goes beyond just houses of worship with sanctuary programs—it is that ICE could enter religious and sacred spaces whenever it wants.”

Trump rescinded the “sensitive locations” restriction on Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests last week, allowing federal agents to conduct raids in places that were deemed off limits in previous years, like schools, hospitals, and places of worship. The policy goes back to the 1990s, and was maintained even in Trump’s first term.

“Quaker meetings for worship seek to be a sanctuary and a refuge for all, and this new and invasive practice tangibly erodes that possibility by creating unnecessary anxiety, confusion, and chilling of our members’ and neighbors’ willingness to share with us in the worship which sustains our lives,” said Noah Merrill, secretary of the Quaker group the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. “This undermines our communities and, we believe, violates our religious freedom.”

Fox News is trying to make adding Donald Trump to Mount Rushmore happen.

Following a MAGA push over the weekend to change the national monument, the hosts of Fox News’s Outnumbered praised the idea on Monday morning, with Harris Faulkner claiming “a growing number of conservatives are pushing to add Trump to the legendary monument.”

Contributor Jason Chaffetz, a former member of Congress, expressed his support for Trump being added to the South Dakota landmark.

“Hey, if there’s room up there I think it’d be great,” Chaffetz said. “I think what Donald Trump has done—and is in the process of doing—is transforming the United States of America and putting America first. And I think America loves it, and I think there’s a great case for it.”

Trump reportedly floated the idea of having his face added to the mountain during his first term in 2020, even asking South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (now his DHS secretary) about the possibility. Nothing came of it except for Noem gifting Trump an $1,100 bust of the monument with his face on it that same year.

This time around, the idea has gotten some attention on the right thanks to Trump’s former aide, conservative pundit Corey Lewandowski, who raised the idea on fellow right-wing pundit Benny Johnson’s show on Friday, suggesting a MAGA legislator could get the ball rolling. Representative Anna Paulina Luna then chimed in on X to say that she planned to introduce legislation to get Trump’s mug on the monument.

Leaving aside the absurdity of the idea, it’s not feasible—the National Park Service said in 2020 that there is no secure space on the mountain. Not to mention that any attempt would be quite an expense for the American taxpayer for an administration pledging to increase “government efficiency.”

Realizing this, other Fox personalities on Outnumbered floated changing the name of Dulles International Airport to Trump International Airport instead, likening it to Ronald Reagan National Airport in the D.C. metro area. That idea was floated last year by Republicans in Congress, only to be met with a tongue-in-cheek response from House Democrats to instead name a federal prison after the convicted felon president.

Now that Republicans have control of both houses of Congress with Trump in office, though, Trump will likely have his name or face on something before he leaves office. Hopefully, it’s something akin to the poor excuse for a state park that bears his name.

A Trump-aligned effort to make the Senate vote to confirm Tulsi Gabbard public could be what pushes the controversial nominee over the finish line.

Gabbard is the forty-seventh president’s pick for director of national intelligence, but in order to actually get the job, she’ll need the support of every single Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee—and it appears that she currently does not have the votes.

“I think it remains to be seen,” Republican Senator John Cornyn, an Intelligence Committee member, told The Hill of Gabbard’s odds. “I think the jury’s still out.”

The committee has a 9-8 split, with Republicans holding the majority. That means that just one Republican voting against Gabbard could compromise her nomination, should Democrats uniformly vote against her.

But a MAGA coalition in the Senate is trying to turn the traditionally closed vote into a public one in order to pressure Republicans on the committee from voting against Trump’s nominee, Politico reported Monday.

Doing so would break Intelligence Committee procedure: “While panel rules allow for the release of a vote tally, they do not allow for a public roll call of how each member voted. Members are free to disclose their votes if they wish,” an unidentified source familiar with the committee told Politico.

According to the outlet, Gabbard’s allies hope that forcing a public vote could scare any reticent Republicans into line. When a few Republican senators expressed concerns about Pete Hegseth, who was sworn in over the weekend as secretary of defense, MAGA fans and Elon Musk threatened to primary them in the 2026 midterms.

Gabbard is scheduled to participate in open and closed hearings before the committee on Thursday.

So far, Maine Senator Susan Collins has expressed frustration with Gabbard’s criticism of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows intelligence officials to conduct surveillance operations on foreign targets and Americans without a warrant.

“There are several questions I want to follow up on in the hearing,” Collins told The Hill, noting that she wants to hear Gabbard’s “unpracticed responses.”

Gabbard, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate turned MAGA acolyte, has also gotten heat from GOP lawmakers for her relationship with fallen Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad, as well as her apparent affiliation with Russian media, her propensity for amplifying Russian propaganda, and spreading conspiracy theories.

In December, the editor in chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT said that Gabbard was one of the friendly faces in Trump’s proposed Cabinet that brought the Kremlin “lots of joy.”

If confirmed, Gabbard would be the first director of national intelligence to have never held any senior government roles. For reference on her relative lack of experience: Gabbard would replace Avril Haines, the first woman to serve in the role. Haines held top national security and intelligence positions before being appointed by President Joe Biden to the role, including serving as deputy national security adviser and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration.