‘Trump Plunged the Country Into Chaos!’ Schumer Rages At Spending Freeze — Calls it ‘Project 2025 By a Different Name’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tore into President Donald Trump’s sweeping pause of federal grants on Tuesday, an order that stunned many in the country when it was issued the night before.

“Last night, President Trump plunged the country into chaos. Without a shred of warning the Trump administration announced a halt to virtually all federal funds across the country,” Schumer began at a presser, adding:

In an instant, Donald Trump has shut off billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that directly support states, cities, towns, schools, hospitals, small businesses, and most of all, American families. This is a dagger at the heart of the average American family in red states and blue states in cities in suburbs in rural areas.

It is just outrageous. Funds for things like disaster assistance, local law enforcement, rural hospitals, aid to the elderly. Food for people in need. All are on the chopping block in this new administration. Why? They need tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. And these cuts, they think will fund them. Every one of our offices has been deluged with calls from people who are in panic.

What is this going to mean? What if I have a hospital that has people on life support? What are we going to do? And just like the January 6th pardons, this decision is lawless, dangerous, destructive, cruel. It’s illegal. It’s unconstitutional. I spoke to my attorney general this morning. She’s head of the state Attorneys General Association, they’re going to court right away on this horror.

Schumer concluded by linking the order to the Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 agenda, which Trump denied he would implement during the presidential campaign. “This, plain and simple, this is Project 2025. Project 2025 by another name. They knew how unpopular Project 2025 was,” Schumer continued, adding:

The right-wing ideologues are still in control, so they had to do it in a different way. But it has the same consequences and will have the same horrible, negative, overwhelming reaction from the American people. And who is going to be the implementer of this? None other than the chief cook and bottle washer of Project 2025: Russell Vought. Putting someone like Russell vote at OMB. The architect of Project 2025 is a huge danger sign to America.

Vought, who also served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget during the end of Trump’s first term, was a key contributor to Project 2025. Vought has previously vowed to gut government spending at any cost and sparred with Democrats during his confirmation hearings over past remarks he made, in which he said he wanted to leave federal employees “in trauma.”

Watch the full clip above via MSNBC.