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'We Do Not Consent,' Says Warren of Illegal 'Power Grab' as Judge Halts Trump Order
Multiple lawmakers and advocacy groups argue that the White House's freeze on federal grant and loan funding is unlawful, and two legal challenges are already in progress.
Jan 28, 2025
Amid a flurry of sharp remarks from U.S. lawmakers in response to President Donald Trump's order to halt federal grant and loan funding across a wide swath of government programs and agencies, Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday demanded action from her colleagues on Capitol Hill.
"While President Trump illegally pauses federal funding from Congress, the Senate must not be business as usual," Warren (D-Mass.) argued on social media before the freeze was supposed to take effect. "We do not consent to this lawless power grab."
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Sean Duffy, Trump's pick for secretary of transportation, and is set to consider various other controversial nominees—including Doug Burgum for interior secretary and Chris Wright for energy secretary—this week.
After the freeze was announced in a memo by Matthew Vaeth, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Democrats called for halting the Senate Budget Committee's consideration of Russell Vought, Trump's choice to lead OMB, but according to a spokesperson for the GOP-led panel, it "will proceed with Mr. Vought's nomination as scheduled."
The freeze was set to begin at 5:00 pm ET Tuesday, but nonprofit and business groups took legal action, which led Washington, D.C.-based U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan to direct the Trump administration not to block funding until a February 3 hearing.
Democratic state attorneys general are also working on a case. That lawsuit, The New York Timesnoted, "opens up another front in what will be a long legal fight led by Democrat-led states and progressive activists to stop President Trump's aggressive second-term agenda in the federal courts."
Some activists and lawmakers—including Warren—also want members of Congress to more forcefully fight back against illegal moves by the Trump administration, even though the president's party has narrow majorities in both chambers.
The president and executive branch "can only erode the checks and balances and grab power from another branch with House and Senate Republicans' consent," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said on social media. "I encourage my Republican colleagues to grow a spine and affirm that we're a co-equal branch of government and not just a dictator's advisory committee."
"And no... I'm not actually holding my breath here for these folks," the progressive lawmaker added.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, said in a statement: "Bottom line: This unconstitutional memo must be rescinded. The American people—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—must come together to defeat this move towards authoritarianism. If President Trump wants to change our nation's laws he has the right to ask Congress to change them. He does not have the right to violate the United States Constitution. He is not a king."
Since the November elections that led to Republicans controlling the White House and Congress, Sanders has joined voters and grassroots organizers in urging the Democratic Party to learn from its devastating losses and actually deliver for working people. Those same voices have urged Democrats to actually serve as an opposition party while Trump is in office.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group that came out of Sanders' 2016 run, said in a Tuesday statement that "Trump's unilateral freeze on federal aid is an assault on working families, public programs, and the pillars of our already fragile social contract. This is a hair-on-fire moment, and Democrats must act accordingly."
"Halting funding for life-or-death programs like Medicaid, school meals, housing, childcare, and other public services is a calculated effort to dismantle government services and public goods," he added. "With Trump prioritizing the billionaire class over the needs of everyday Americans, Democrats must be relentless in standing up for the people. This is policy violence, plain and simple."
Ahead of 5:00 pm, as the Medicaid payment portals across all 50 states went down, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dodged questions about which programs would be impacted during a press briefing. She later said on social media that "the White House is aware of the Medicaid website portal outage. We have confirmed no payments have been affected—they are still being processed and sent. We expect the portal will be back online shortly."
After the briefing, ABC Newsreported on another memo from OMB:
An OMB memo obtained by ABC News senior political correspondent Rachel Scott also sought to shed light on the freeze's implications.
According to the memo, "In addition to Social Security and Medicare, already explicitly excluded in the guidance, mandatory programs like Medicaid and [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] will continue without pause."
"Funds for small businesses, farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance, and other similar programs will not be paused," the document read. "If agencies are concerned that these programs may implicate the president's executive orders, they should consult OMB to begin to unwind these objectionable policies without a pause in the payments."
"Still, the pause could have sweeping implications," ABC pointed out, "as the federal government funds thousands of programs, including housing subsidies and educational grants."
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House Progressives Say US 'Must Suspend Offensive Weapons' to Israel
"Failure to do so not only risks our leverage in ceasefire negotiations, it undermines our country's own national security and weakens America's commitment to human rights as a cornerstone of our foreign policy."
Dec 17, 2024
Twenty progressives in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday wrote to top Biden administration officials arguing that "the United States government must suspend offensive weapons" to Israel over its destruction of the Gaza Strip, citing federal and international law.
Led by Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Greg Casar (D-Texas), the incoming Congressional Progressive Caucus chair, the lawmakers began by thanking U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for their October 13 letter threatening to cut off weapons to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government if it did not dramatically improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
"However, despite your administration acknowledging that the Netanyahu government did not fully address the United States' concerns over Gaza and has failed to meet all of the conditions stipulated in this letter, the State Department decided not to take further action, including the suspension of offensive military assistance, to ensure full compliance," the Democrats wrote.
"We believe continuing to transfer offensive weapons to the Israeli government prolongs the suffering of the Palestinian people and risks our own national security by sending a message to the world that the U.S. will apply its laws, policies, and international law selectively," they continued. "Furthermore, a failure to act will put Israeli lives in danger by prolonging Netanyahu's war, isolating Israel on the international stage, and creating further instability in the region."
The new letter comes just over a month away from President Joe Biden leaving office and follows one from last week signed by 77 House Democrats—including Casar—that demanded "a full assessment of the status of Israel's compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
This one goes further, explicitly urging the Biden administration to suspend offensive military transfers and warning that "failure to do so not only risks our leverage in cease-fire negotiations, it undermines our country's own national security and weakens America's commitment to human rights as a cornerstone of our foreign policy."
"We remain committed to saving Palestinian and Israeli lives. This means doing everything possible to prioritize the release of hostages, secure a lasting cease-fire deal, and move toward long-term peace," the 20 progressives concluded.
In addition to Lee and Casar, Tuesday's letter was signed by Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Joaquin Castro (Texas), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Sara Jacobs (Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Hank Johnson (Ga.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia C. Ramirez (Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
It came on the same day as a lawsuit filed by Palestinians and Palestinian Americans accusing the U.S. State Department of creating "unique, insurmountable processes to evade the Leahy Law requirement to sanction abusive Israeli units."
As of Tuesday, the 14-month Israeli assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack has killed at least 45,059 people and wounded another 107,041, according to local officials. Israel's slaughter and starvation of Palestinian civilians have led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice as well as International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
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GOP Targets Medicaid, SNAP Benefits to 'Pay for Tax Cuts for Their Billionaire Donors'
"The GOP wants to make food and healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible for the most vulnerable people in our country," said Rep. Summer Lee. "Make no mistake on who they're serving."
Nov 18, 2024
Congressional Republicans are reportedly considering new work requirements for recipients of Medicaid and nutrition assistance as well as spending caps for the programs as potential ways to counteract the massive cost of their tax agenda, which would primarily benefit the rich and large corporations.
The Washington Postreported Monday that Republicans, who are poised to take full control of the federal government come January, "have begun preliminary discussions about making significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps, and other federal safety net programs to offset the enormous cost of extending" soon-to-expire elements of the regressive tax law that President-elect Donald Trump signed in year one of his first White House term.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this year that an extension of the 2017 tax cuts would add $4.6 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next decade. Republicans have made clear that tax legislation is a top priority in the next Congress, and they're preparing to use a fast-track procedure known as reconciliation to ram a new round of tax cuts through.
According to the Post, members of Trump's transition team have discussed with GOP lawmakers and aides the possibility of adding punitive new work requirements and spending caps to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Research and real-world experience have consistently shown that work requirements do virtually nothing to boost employment while making it harder for people in need to receive aid.
"To pay for tax cuts for their billionaire donors, the GOP wants to make food and healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible for the most vulnerable people in our country," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) wrote in response to the Post's reporting. "Make no mistake on who they're serving."
"We already knew the push to cut taxes for the wealthy next year was going to be costly. Now we're learning that deep cuts to critical programs are on the agenda to help pay for them."
Following an election in which grocery costs were a leading concern of many voters, the Post reported that Republican lawmakers are "discussing stripping presidential authority to recalculate benefits" for SNAP, the nation's highly effective hunger-reducing tool that helps millions afford food each year.
"Republicans argue that if they eliminate that authority and hemmed in SNAP benefits—which increase automatically with inflation—that should count as reducing the deficit by tens of billions of dollars, according to some estimates," the Post noted.
As for Medicaid, the newspaper detailed preliminary GOP discussions to halt Biden administration efforts to help people who lost coverage due to the post-pandemic purge, adding a work requirement similar to SNAP's, and conducting more frequent eligibility checks—which could result in more people losing access to the program.
House Budget Committee Chair Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) openly made the case last week for what he called a "responsible and reasonable work requirement" for Medicaid, the Post observed.
Estimated savings from such changes come nowhere near offsetting the huge projected cost of extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts for individuals and handing additional tax breaks to big corporations. On the campaign trail, Trump proposed reducing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, a change that would give the 100 largest U.S. corporations a combined tax cut of $48 billion a year.
Trump's tax agenda would also disproportionately benefit the wealthiest individuals in the U.S. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) released an analysis last month showing that the tax proposals Trump floated during his bid for a second White House term would deliver annual tax cuts to the top 5% and tax hikes for the bottom 95%.
"We already knew the push to cut taxes for the wealthy next year was going to be costly," ITEP wrote on social media Monday. "Now we're learning that deep cuts to critical programs are on the agenda to help pay for them."
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