WASHINGTON--President Donald Trump's attempt to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid was temporarily blocked in court on Tuesday, even as it sowed chaos throughout the government and stirred fears that it would disrupt programmes that serve tens of millions of Americans.
Minutes before it was due to take effect at 5 p.m. ET, a federal judge blocked Trump's spending freeze that would have affected thousands of federal grant programmes. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan granted a temporary halt after an advocacy group argued the freeze would devastate programmes ranging from health care to road construction. The court will revisit the issue on Monday.
Trump's sweeping directive was the latest step in his dramatic effort to overhaul the federal government, which has already seen the new president halt foreign aid, freeze hiring and shutter diversity programmes across dozens of agencies.
Democrats castigated the funding freeze as an illegal assault on Congress' authority over federal spending and said it was already disrupting payments to doctors and preschool teachers. Republicans largely defended the order as fulfilling Trump's campaign promise to rein in the $6.75 trillion budget.
The Trump administration said programmes delivering benefits directly to Americans would not be affected. But Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said his office had confirmed that doctors in all 50 states were not able to secure payments from Medicaid, which provides health coverage to 70 million low-income Americans.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that the government was aware of the Medicaid portal outage and no payments had been affected. She said the website would be back online shortly.
Health care industry officials said the interruption could cause lasting damage. "If the federal government stops pushing funds out to state Medicaid contractors, the result would be a complete debacle, with Medicaid providers going out of business," said Sara Ratner of health care company NOMI Health.
The White House said the freeze was needed to ensure federal aid programmes are aligned with the Republican president's priorities, including executive orders he signed ending diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Trump's order faces another legal challenge from Democratic state attorneys general, who argued in a lawsuit that the freeze violates the U.S. Constitution and would have a devastating effect on states that rely on federal aid for a substantial portion of their budgets.Federal grants and loans reach into virtually every corner of Americans' lives, with hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into education, health care and anti-poverty programmes, housing assistance, disaster relief, infrastructure and a host of other initiatives. The proposed cuts could also take a heavy toll on Republican-leaning states, whose residents are significant beneficiaries of major federal programmes.
