President Donald Trump caused chaos late Monday evening when his Office of Management and Budget announced a sudden pause on federal grants, loans, and other types of financial assistance.
Almost immediately, Democrats in the Senate called the move illegal — seizing on the freeze as their first real ammunition for a fight against Trump. While many senators have remained relatively subdued in the first days of Trump’s administration, the pause, and the chaos it’s already caused, has lawmakers gearing up for battle.
A federal judge blocked the freeze Tuesday until February 3 following a lawsuit. But it’s not clear what the ultimate resolution will be in a court battle. But Democrats don’t appear ready to back down.
Back in November, Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota was in a contemplative state, telling The Independent of Kamala Harris’s loss that “we lost, and we need to do better.”
Now, she is singularly focused on how the freeze could affect her consituents, saying she just spoke to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz about the chaos the sudden move is causing in their state.
“I spoke to the governor just a few minutes ago, who told me that the entire apparatus for getting paid for people's health insurance” was shaky Monday, she told The Independent, adding that the future of Head Start, which helps low-income children, is now unclear.
In Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin — one of only two incumbent Democrats who survived her re-election in a state Trump won — is also worried about how a Trump fudning freeze could throw her state into disarray.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts decried Trump’s move, pointing out the important work that federal funding supports. Now, it’s could all be up in the air.
“Right now, people are asking whether they will have to turn away children from daycare centers because they get some federal funding, or do our scientists who are doing research on better treatments for cancer have to quit their work, because some of them only comes from the federal government,” Warren told The Independent.
Interfering with Congress’s spending authority might be one of the few areas where both parties take umbrage. An old adage in Washington says there are three parties in town: Democrats, Republicans and Appropriators. The Democrats and Republicans grandstand while appropriators in both parties hunker down and write the budget.
Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, is one of the more mild-mannered and cordial Democrats. But he did not hold back when asked whether he heard back from constituents.
“Hell yeah,” he told The Independent. “I mean, this is Donald Trump outdoing Richard Nixon on impoundment.”
Impoundment refers to the executive branch delaying or refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress. Nixon created such a stir in 1974 that Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act to curtail such abuses.
But Democrats have limited options about what they can do to push back. They do not have control of the House or the Senate and lawsuits from states will not result in immediate permanent action.
Democrats do have one tool in the box: the ability to slow down nominations, if not stop them outright. Republicans hope to confirm Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget who served in his last administration and helped with Project 2025. Vought had his confirmation hearing last week and the Budget Committee will meet later this week to consider his nomination.
Naturally, many Republicans reverted to their normal “I haven’t seen the tweet” response to Trump. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, the swing district Republican who faced criticism for his vote to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, tried to split the difference.
“I can't imagine that the president would knowingly cut off housing assistance for people displaced from their home, so we've just got to sort through it and see how they ultimately implement it,” he told The Independent. Tillis added that he would talk with the White House soon.
“I’m sure we will, which is why we need to get to the facts versus fear,” he said. Tillis hails from a state that’s heavily reliant on federal aid. But crossing Trump is a big risk.
That is not a concern for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who last week broke with her party to oppose Hegseth’s nomination.
“My constituents back home certainly have thoughts about it,” Murkowski told The Independent. “Our phones have been ringing off the hook all morning, wondering what it means, how long it's going to last, everything from a small dam project, small hydro project down in the Angoon area, to people concerned about everything from housing to water infrastructure projects. So yeah, lot of questions about what it means and the impact.”
Appropriators will continue to protect their power regardless of who is in the White House.
