Court Shuts Down Trump’s Funding Freeze Chaos—Again

Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze has somehow become even more of a fiasco—and he has his press secretary to thank.

Twenty-three state attorneys general appeared in federal court in Rhode Island Wednesday to oppose the Office of Management and Budget’s memo freezing federal funding for grants and loans that Congress had already approved and passed.

Ahead of the hearing, the OMB issued a memo rescinding its original memo about the freeze. White House aides said that the decision to rescind the memorandum was not intended as a way to back off the funding freeze, but rather to sidestep another court’s injunction that was issued Tuesday night, according to CBS News’s Jennifer Jacobs.

Unfortunately for the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt seems to have undermined their gambit by giving up the game in a statement posted to X.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo,” Leavitt wrote Wednesday. “Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

Hours later, the states were able to introduce Leavitt’s confused and confusing statement during the hearing as evidence that their lawsuit should continue despite the fact that the memo had been rescinded.

Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell agreed to grant a restraining order on the freeze, saying that “based on comments by the president’s secretary,” the rescission of the “hugely ambiguous” OMB memo was merely a linguistic distinction and hadn’t actually blocked the freeze at all, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

While the Trump administration insisted that certain programs, such as Medicaid and Head Start, would not be affected by the directive, every single state experienced issues accessing these programs on Tuesday, leading to a national outcry from citizens and Democratic lawmakers.

In a separate case brought forward by nonprofits, a district judge issued a brief administrative stay before the memo was expected to go into effect Tuesday evening.

Trump wants to send 30,000 undocumented immigrants to Guantánamo Bay.

The president announced Wednesday that he will sign an executive order to transform the former detention camp for military prisoners into another detention camp for immigrants.

“I’m signing an executive order to instruct the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantánamo Bay, most people don’t even know about it,” Trump told reporters, while signing into law the Laken Riley Act, which would allow federal authorities to detain any immigrant accused of a crime.

“We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people, some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back. So we’re gonna send them out to Guantánamo. This will double our capacity immediately, and tough, that’s a tough place to get out of. Today’s signing brings us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities once and for all.”

Guantánamo is infamous for the rampant torture and abuse that U.S. interrogators inflicted on prisoners since the camp opened in 2002. There are currently 15 people still being detained there.

Donald Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, one of the most extreme anti-immigration bills in recent memory, into law Wednesday.

This is the first piece of legislation that Trump has signed in his second term—and it sets the tone for what’s to come. The law will allow law enforcement to detain and deport undocumented immigrants on the mere suspicion of committing a crime, with no conviction necessary. It does not include protections for children or DACA recipients. Twelve Democrats in the Senate and 46 Democrats in the House joined every Republican in Congress to pass the bill.

The new law will make it easier for Trump to pursue his goal of mass deportations, which have already begun in earnest around the country. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have set the heavy goal of 1,200 to 1,500 deportations a day, in the process, innocent people have been detained, such as Native members of the Navajo Nation and several Puerto Ricans, including a child and a U.S. military veteran.

The stepped-up immigration raids have already a negative effect on the food industry, but have also been met with opposition from many Americans. Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan complained on Tuesday that people in Chicago are hampering detention efforts because “they’ve been educated how to defy ICE, how to hide from ICE.”

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security was sued on Monday by multiple Quaker religious groups from across the country for lifting a restriction on immigration raids in places of worship. Trump and his right-wing allies are using every existing tool in their arsenal and passing new laws to boost their deportation efforts, but the process has been chaotic and negligent.

This story has been updated.

Mike Pence is pulling out receipts to lobby senators against confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary.

The former vice president posted a minute-long compilation of clips showing President Trump disparaging RFK Jr., mostly while they were each on the campaign trail last year.

“President Trump was right the first time.… Senators, Vote No on RFK. Jr.,” the video is captioned.

“RFK Jr is a Democrat plant, a radical left liberal,” one clip from May showed Trump saying. “He makes the ‘Green New Scammers’ look very conservative by comparison, and he’s anti-military and he’s anti-vet.… I’d even take Biden over Junior.”

The clip ends with inviting viewers to visit “RFKQuestions.com,” which redirects to a letter from conservative PAC Advancing American Freedom urging the Senate not to confirm RFK Jr. on the grounds that he is pro-abortion.

The video was posted on the eve of RFK Jr.’s first confirmation hearing Wednesday, during which the Trump nominee crumbled when questioned about his own past comments.

Donald Trump’s administration has made its calamitous freeze on federal grants and loans even worse.

In a brief memo Wednesday, the Office for Management and Budget announced that it would be withdrawing its order to pause funding for review.

“OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have any questions about implementing the President’s Executive Orders please contact your agency General Counsel,” the memo stated.

But then, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt just made things even messier.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo,” she wrote on X. “Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

The freeze was originally intended to go into effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. But all day, state officials and lawmakers reported having issues accessing essential government services such as Medicaid and Head Start, despite subsequent assurances from OMB that these programs would not be affected by the freeze. These issues and widespread confusion led to a public outcry, as many feared that their health care access was in jeopardy.

Democratic leaders called it a “constitutional crisis,” as Trump’s administration was clearly preventing funds from being allocated as Congress had decided. To resecure funding, these organizations would have had to report to OMB on whether they promote ideas such as environmental justice, “gender ideology,” and diversity, equity, and inclusion. They would also have to say whether they provide services to undocumented immigrants.

Tuesday night, a district judge ordered a brief administrative stay on the freeze, delaying it from going into effect until February 3. This means that Leavitt’s claim the executive orders are “in full force and effect” is false.

“Thanks. This clarifies nothing,” Minnesota Senator Tina Smith tweeted in response, speaking for all of us.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine warned that “this battle is just beginning.”

“I don’t know that they know what they’re doing. I think all they know is they got a backlash they didn’t expect, and so we’re not assuming the rescission is to be taken as a resolution,” he told reporters. “So we’re going to be on the floor tonight raising hell about this.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James warned that “this is just more confusion and chaos. We will be in court this afternoon.”

James is part of a coalition of Democratic attorneys general who have sued the Trump administration over the funding freeze.

This first major fiasco by the Trump administration promises only more chaos to come.

This story has been updated.