Trump’s Reckoning Delayed, But It Is Far From Over [WATCH]

The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has officially rescinded a memorandum that temporarily paused certain federal spending to align with President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

TRILLION-DOLLAR FREEZE: TRUMP HITS PAUSE ON ALL FEDERAL FUNDING

In a sweeping move, the White House just ordered every federal agency to stop all grants and loans – effective tomorrow at 5pm.

White House Office of Management and Budget acting director Matthew Vaeth:… pic.twitter.com/OybR7x4mLI

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 28, 2025

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While Democrats and their media allies are celebrating the move, the legal battle over federal grant allocations is far from over.

Despite the OMB reversal, Trump’s efforts to restrict federal funding from nonprofit organizations that contradict his executive directives remain in motion.

Nonprofit groups affected by the funding freezes are expected to continue filing lawsuits, and legal experts anticipate that the courts may ultimately uphold Trump’s authority to withhold funds under the president’s impoundment powers.

In his first week back in office, Trump signed a series of executive orders aimed at ensuring federal grants align with his administration’s policies. These orders included:

• Protecting the American People Against Invasion, which sought to end federal funding for organizations that assist illegal immigrants in entering and remaining in the United States.Ending
• Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, which aimed to halt support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within federal agencies.
• Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, which sought to block funding for nonprofit organizations that promote gender ideology policies.

To enforce these directives, the OMB issued memo M-25-13, instructing federal agencies to conduct a full inventory of grant programs to determine which ones were in violation of the new executive orders.

The memo also mandated a “temporary pause” on funding tied to these programs while the review was conducted.

The memorandum had an immediate effect, compelling agencies to submit the requested spending data.

However, some career bureaucrats within federal agencies used the memo’s broad language to stall implementation and generate confusion.

Despite the directive stating that the funding pause would not take effect until 5 p.m. on Tuesday, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acted prematurely.

By Tuesday morning, the HHS website displayed a warning about possible disruptions to state Medicaid reimbursements, and some states reported that the reimbursement portal had become inoperative.

However, OMB later clarified in a separate document that Medicaid funding was never subject to the freeze.

The premature actions of certain agency officials led to misleading headlines, with Democrat-aligned media outlets seizing on the confusion to criticize the administration’s policy.

Following the spending freeze, several nonprofit organizations filed lawsuits in federal court challenging the OMB directive.

However, notably absent from their legal arguments was any claim that the Trump administration violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which governs presidential authority over budget allocations.

Instead, the lawsuits argued that the spending freeze violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), contending that the directive was “arbitrary and capricious” due to its broad scope.

Facing potential legal and political complications, the White House opted to rescind memo M-25-13 and instead fight the battle over individual programs rather than the memo itself.

While the rescission of the OMB memo is a temporary setback, it does not end the larger legal fight over the president’s authority to halt federal spending on programs that conflict with executive policies.

The memo’s impact was not entirely reversed—agency heads are now submitting detailed spending information that was previously withheld, and bureaucrats who resisted Trump’s directives have revealed themselves through their actions.

As the legal fight continues, the administration is expected to challenge funding for specific nonprofit groups on a case-by-case basis, rather than through a blanket freeze.

Trump’s policy agenda—focusing on border security, eliminating DEI programs, and reversing radical gender policies—remains a central battle in the ongoing debate over executive spending authority.

With Democrats emboldened by the OMB reversal and their media allies amplifying misleading narratives, the fight over federal funding and executive power is far from over.

Trump has made clear that his administration will continue to push forward in ensuring federal dollars reflect the will of the voters who elected him.

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