White House Memo Puts Federal Funding On Hold
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram and political correspondents Stephen Fowler and Susan Davis.
The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:23.7 | Hi, my name is Joe Walk. I am at Echo Lake Elementary School in Shoreline, Washington, |
| 0:28.9 | and I just got finished putting the finishing touches on the first edition of our monthly |
| 0:32.4 | newspaper, The Talon. This podcast was recorded at 106 p.m. on Tuesday, January 28th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but our students will be better informed, which is so important in today's world. Okay, here's the show. |
| 0:53.9 | I worked on my elementary school something, something. |
| 0:57.0 | I don't know if it was a newspaper or maybe it was the yearbook, but that's life-changing stuff. |
| 1:00.9 | I'm curious to know if they have a print edition or if it's all online. |
| 1:04.6 | And if so, how they're reading it, if they're elementary school kids. |
| 1:07.8 | Yeah, is it a newsletter? |
| 1:09.1 | Like, are they on TikTok? I want to know. |
| 1:11.0 | Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Dupa Shiverum. I cover the White House. |
| 1:14.6 | I'm Stephen Fowler. I cover politics. And I'm Susan Davis. I also cover politics. |
| 1:18.9 | All right. So big news from yesterday. The White House Budget Office ordered a pause on all federal |
| 1:23.6 | grants and loans. The internal memo states that, quote, the use of federal resources to |
| 1:28.2 | advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and Green New Deal social engineering policies is a |
| 1:33.8 | waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve. So this |
| 1:38.7 | pause has set off alarm bells among Democrats, including Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer. |
| 1:43.6 | This decision is lawless, dangerous, destructive, cruel. It's illegal. It's unconstitutional. |
| 1:54.3 | All right, a lot to get into. So, Sue, I'm going to start with you. Let's start from the top. |
| 1:58.2 | What exactly does this memo say? Well, there's a lot we don't know, |
| 2:01.0 | so let's start with what we do know. The memo came from Matthew Vieth. He's the acting director |
| 2:05.4 | of the Office of Management and Budget. The pending director, Russ, vote, has not yet been |
... |
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