Enraged Democrats Announce An ‘Emergency’ Meeting On Trump’s Spending Freeze — For Tomorrow
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
House Democrats announced on Tuesday afternoon that they would hold an “emergency virtual caucus meeting” to discuss President Donald Trump’s order to freeze all federal grants, which took many by surprise across the country and left Democrats fuming online. The Democrat’s announcing an “emergency” meeting a full 24 hours later resulted in mockery online, particularly given the amount of anger and concern many of them expressed.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) posted on X, “The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, not the White House. These funds have already been allocated. They help families afford food, heat their homes, pay for childcare, go to the doctor, and more. This is worse than Project 2025.”
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) posted something similar writing, “Just so there is no confusion, Trump has frozen ALL spending — both domestic and foreign. This will reduce US power and influence across the globe, cut jobs for union members and working Americans, increase inflation, and let China beat us. That’s not what America voted for.”
Shortly after the order took effect, the Medicaid patients portal also shut down across the country.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) reacted to the news writing, “My staff has confirmed reports that Medicaid portals are down in all 50 states following last night’s federal funding freeze. This is a blatant attempt to rip away health insurance from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed.”
While the White House said the spending freeze and portal outages were not related, but many news outlets reported on the overall confusion resulting from the broad language in the sweeping spending freeze. Politico reported that Trump’s “freeze on federal aid and grants is still reverberating today as the gears of government churn out the real-world impact of the administration’s broad order.”
The Democrats scheduling their “emergency” meeting for the day after the news broke also raised some eyebrows. The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote, “Two parties running at different speeds. Senate Dems are holding a press conference today to condemn the pardoning of J6ers. That was done a week ago. Unclear if there is a presser today to go after the OMB’s power play to take over all federal grant money.”
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan ordered a pause on the spending freeze Tuesday evening, telling “the Trump administration not to block “open awards,” or funds that were already slated to be disbursed, until at least Feb. 3,” reported Reuters.
Below are some more reactions:
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