Nonprofit groups and a coalition of attorneys general in 22 states and the District of Columbia are seeking a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration's planned pause in the distribution of federal grant and loan money that was set to begin at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
The pause, according to a memo from President Donald Trump's Office of Management and Budget, is to allow the administration "time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President's priorities."
It also stated that agencies "must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation and disbursement" of all federal financial assistance that might be affected by Trump's executive orders, including foreign aid, assistance to nongovernmental organizations, "woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."
One lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the National Council of Nonprofits, the American Public Health Association, the Main Street Alliance, and the New York-based group SAGE, according to CNBC. Another was expected to be filed by the attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
"The Trump Administration is recklessly disregarding the health, well-being, and public safety of the people it is supposed to serve," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Tuesday in a news release. "This directive is unprecedented in scope and would be devastating if implemented."
New York Attorney General Letitia James echoed Bonta's sentiments Monday night in a post on X.
"This administration's pause on federal funding is reckless and dangerous," James wrote. "Programs in communities across the entire nation depend on this funding to support our families, and this action is only going to hurt them."
But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during Tuesday's briefing that the OMB's directive is not a blanket pause on federal assistance in grant programs.
"Individual assistance that includes — I'm not naming everything that's included, but just to give you a few examples — Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits, assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause, and I want to make that very clear to the Americans who are watching at home who may be a little bit confused about some of the media reporting," Leavitt said. "If you are receiving individual assistance from the federal government, you will still continue to receive that."
"However, it is the responsibility of this president and this administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. That is something that President Trump campaigned on. That's why he has launched DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, who is working alongside OMB. And that's why OMB sent out this memo last night because the president signed an executive order directing OMB to do just this. And the reason for this is to ensure that every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken."