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The Trump administration’s stunning move to pause all federal loans and grants has roots in the conservative manifesto Project 2025, though the government-wide halt goes beyond what the project suggested.
Russ Vought, Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has not yet been confirmed, but his influence is clear in the agency already. Vought authored a chapter in Project 2025 about how the president could consolidate power and enforce his agenda to overcome career bureaucrats, including withholding funds to get compliance
Throughout the project, headlined by the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation, authors suggest pausing, reviewing, curtailing and eliminating grants that are seen as advancing liberal agendas, like environmental stewardship and LGBTQ+ equality.
The project calls for an executive order that includes “an accounting of how federal programs/grants spread DEI/CRT/gender ideology”. It goes through agency-specific grants that should have language added or inserted to undermine the “woke” agenda. It suggests using federal contracts with private businesses to drive policy agendas and “push back against woke policies in corporate America”.
In a two-page internal memo on Monday, Matthew Vaeth, Trump’s acting head of OMB, instructed all federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance”, excluding assistance that goes directly to individuals.
Nonetheless, Medicaid portals across the states were reportedly down as of Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers said. Medicaid provides health insurance for lower-income people.
The memo directs agencies to review all grants and loans to ensure they do not include “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, [diversity initiatives], woke gender ideology, and the green new deal” by 10 February. Until these programs are reviewed, they are paused, starting on 28 January at 5pm.
The legality of the memo is in question, and a lawsuit was quickly filed over whether Trump can take such a broad action. In his Project 2025 chapter, Vought writes that the budget department’s general counsel should be “respected yet creative and fearless in his or her ability to challenge legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo”, a sign that the agency intends to push its legal limits.
Other OMB memos posted online included metadata showing authors who have ties to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, the tech newsletter Citation Needed found.
The net of federal loans and grants is vast, touching preschool programs, food systems, energy assistance, disaster relief, infrastructure – nearly all aspects of American life. In the immediate aftermath of the memo, organizations that rely on federal funds have said they are not sure what to do next.
Meals on Wheels, which provides food for seniors backed by federal grants, told HuffPost the memo led to “chaos” for those who deliver meals, “which unfortunately means seniors will panic not knowing where their next meals will come from”. The Minnesota senator Tina Smith questioned whether an energy assistance program for low-income people would be turned off in the middle of winter, saying “it’s life or death for many Minnesotans”.
It is unclear if Head Start, a preschool program for low-income kids, would get its funding. Project 2025 does not suggest pausing Head Start grants – it suggests getting rid of Head Start entirely, claiming the preschool programs have “little or no long-term academic value for children” and are rife with scandal and abuse.
Emergency management grants, the project says, should be cut significantly, with states taking on a bigger role in disaster relief and grants withheld from local jurisdictions that do not go along with immigration enforcement actions. Trump has himself suggested getting rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) in recent days.
A separate executive order halted US foreign aid, aligning with Project 2025 goals to cut back on foreign aid and ensure it does not include specific terms or goals the right has deemed off limits, including “abortion”, “gender equity” and related terms.
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At the Environmental Protection Agency, the project calls for reviewing grants to make sure they go to organizations that focus on “tangible environmental improvements free from political affiliation”. The project wanted a “pause and review” of all grants within the EPA over a certain dollar amount and a political appointee placed in charge of the grants office.
“Grant funds produce little to no meaningful improvements in the environment and public health and instead fund questionably relevant projects at elite, private academic institutions that invariably produce radical environmental research,” the EPA chapter says.
In the Department of Justice, the project also wanted an “immediate, comprehensive review of all federal grant disbursals” to see if programs were properly administered and aligned with the administration and called for an “overhaul” of the department’s grant process to “ensure baseline fitness and eligibility for federal grant dollars”.
The project also says grants for adoption agencies should be revised to make sure faith-based organizations can discriminate against same-sex couples because they “cannot in good conscience place children in every household due to their religious belief that a child should have a married mother and father”.
Democrats, organizations affected by the pause and good governance advocates have spoken out against the memo and the ways it will affect everyday people.
“Everyone’s worst fears are confirmed – Trump is enacting Project 2025 and unilaterally, effectively shutting down the parts of government that people depend on,” said Malachi White, the spokesperson for Courage for America, a left-leaning advocacy group. “It means higher costs for families and literally takes food out of peoples mouths.”
