Trump Federal Funding Freeze Order Sows Confusion, Fear

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Trump’s order to freeze federal grants and loans on Tuesday, as Medicaid and other programs experienced interruptions causing chaos and confusion. The Trump administration’s directive could halt trillions of dollars in federal funds while agencies are directed to ensure financial assistance doesn’t conflict with administration ideology. California’s Attorney General and 22 other states have sued to stop the freeze, saying it is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers. We’ll talk about what could be affected by the funding order, which is halted until at least Monday, the legality of Trump’s action, and the efforts to fight it. Guests: Samuel R. Bagenstos, professor of law, University of Michigan Law School; former general counsel, White House Office of Management and Budget Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer, Slate magazine Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent, KQED, co-host of KQED's Political Breakdown Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:09.0	From KQED.
1:24.3	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:29.4	With an executive order on Monday night, Donald Trump sent the federal government into chaos, as it appeared to order the freezing of funds to an unknown swath of government
1:35.6	programs until and unless they came into compliance with the Trump administration's policy demands.
1:42.9	A second memo Tuesday and a court decision freezing the action have created even more confusion.
1:49.0	We'll try to sort out what happened, what it means for the country, and what to look for going forward.
1:55.0	It's all coming up next after this news welcome to this news welcome to forum i'm alexus madrigal You could be forgiven if you did not know the word
2:19.4	impoundment before, say, Monday night. But in his platform, Agenda 47, Donald Trump promised
2:26.5	to use impoundment to, quote, squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy. Trump argued
2:32.7	presidents should have wide latitude to spend less than Congress
2:36.4	appropriated for government programs, saying the appropriation was a ceiling, not a floor. That power
2:43.3	has explicitly not resided in the presidency since Congress nearly unanimously passed the congressional
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