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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt cited the possibility that federal spending is going to transgender people as one of the motivating factors behind Donald Trump’s “freeze” on federal grants and loans, a move that caused chaos yesterday as the White House shut down Medicaid reimbursement in all 50 states. The White House later allowed Medicaid reimbursements after public outcry.
On Monday night, the Trump administration announced that it would stop disbursing funds that had been allocated by Congress, funds that many government, nonprofit, and state programs depend on to pay their employees and offer services.
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The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a vague memo that the funding was frozen in order to review all federal programs for the possibility that they include diversity initiatives and to examine whether a program will “promote gender ideology.” “Gender ideology” is a term conservatives use to describe the idea that trans people exist.
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The freeze is being challenged in court because the president does not have the power to retroactively veto laws that were already passed.
A reporter asked Leavitt about the freeze and what it applied to. She explained that it does not apply to some programs like Social Security.
“However, it is the responsibility of this president and his administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” she said. “That is something that President Trump campaigned on.”
“And the reason for [the freeze] 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,” she continued. “So what does this pause mean? It means no more funding for illegal DEI programs. It means no more funding for the green new scam that has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies. No more funding for Green New Deal social engineering policies.”
Independent journalist Erin Reed argued on Bluesky that the freeze shows that transgender rights aren’t a distraction during the second Trump administration but that they are “the main event for the GOP.”
“Trump’s shutting down of the entire government’s funding system for American projects is literally so he can go line by line and target transgender people and other minorities,” she wrote. “When we said transphobia affects cis people too, well… here you go.”
So Trump's shutting down of the entire government's funding system for American projects is literally so he can go line by line and target transgender people and other minorities. When we said transphobia affects cis people too, well… here you go.
— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) January 28, 2025 at 7:39 PM
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