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Breaking: Amid Massive Backlash, White House Rescinds Trump’s Funding Freeze

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rescinded a memo Wednesday that had ordered a “temporary pause” on federal funding and unleashed major confusion across the country.

It’s an astonishing reversal by the Trump administration, a day after top officials defended the funding freeze — which a judge temporarily halted on Tuesday — as necessary to ensure all government spending was aligned with the president’s vision.

On Monday night, the Trump administration created widespread confusion across the government, Congress, state programs and nonprofit organizations when it announced an abrupt halt on federal grants and loans.

The Office of Management and Budget sent a vaguely worded two-page memo to all federal agencies Monday night directing them to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance” that could conflict with President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The following morning, nonprofit organizations said they were unable to get into a system used to access federal funds to pay for expenses, like salaries and rent.

It’s not clear exactly which programs will be halted, but OMB also sent a document to agencies asking for details on more than 2,600 programs, including school meals for low-income students, U.S. Agency for International Development foreign assistance, mine inspections, the WIC nutrition program for pregnant women and infants and a reintegration program for homeless veterans.

In addition to information about the disbursement of funds, the OMB spreadsheet had questions more specific to the Trump agenda, including:

  • Does this program provide funding that is implicated by the directive to end discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities, under whatever name they appear, or other directives in the same EO, including those related to “environmental justice” programs or “equity-related” grants?
  • Does this program promote gender ideology?
  • Does this program promote or support in any way abortion or other related activities identified in the Hyde Amendment?

OMB asked for the information to be submitted by Feb. 7.

A senior administration official said the action is not a freeze on funding but a pause to give agencies time to review whether federal grants and loans are in compliance with recent executive actions taken by Trump. The official said OMB has already been working with agencies to exempt certain programs and thatthe pause would take effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

“It means no more funding for the green new scam that has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday at her first news briefing. “It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies.”

Funding for programs that provide direct assistance to Americans would be excluded from the pause and exempt from the review process, the senior administration official said. Those programs include Medicaid, food stamps, small business assistance, Head Start, rental assistance and federal Pell Grants for college students, according to a memo sent out Tuesday afternoon by OMB.

“If you are receiving individual assistance from the federal government, you will still continue to receive that,” said Leavitt. “However, it is the responsibility of this president and this administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

When asked specifically about Medicaid, which provides health insurance to more than 70 million low-income and disabled Americans, Leavitt said she would get reporters a full list from OMB.

The OMB memo sent out Monday evening said the funding review would be related to “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.”

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