According to Reuters, the move, announced during a government shutdown, targeted programs deeply tied to Democratic priorities.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday froze $26 billion in federal funding earmarked for Democratic-leaning states, escalating partisan tensions and drawing accusations of political blackmail.
According to Reuters, the move, announced during a government shutdown, targeted programs deeply tied to Democratic priorities.
It included $18 billion for transit projects in New York, home to Congress’s top two Democrats, and $8 billion for green-energy projects across 16 Democratic-run states, including California and Illinois.
Vice President JD Vance signaled that the administration might extend its purge of federal workers if the shutdown lingers beyond a few days, underscoring the White House’s willingness to wield the crisis as leverage.
Trump himself took to Truth Social to defend the decision, writing late Wednesday that “billions of dollars can be saved.”
The freeze immediately triggered backlash. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, accused Trump of deliberately weaponizing the shutdown to punish political rivals.
“He is using the American people as pawns, threatening pain on the country as blackmail,” Schumer said.
The government shutdown, the 15th since 1981, has already forced 750,000 federal employees off the job, while troops and Border Patrol agents continue to work without pay.
It has also disrupted scientific research, environmental cleanup, financial oversight, and other critical services. The Department of Veterans Affairs noted it would still provide burials in national cemeteries but would no longer erect headstones or mow the grass.
Even some Republicans expressed unease about the potential fallout. Senator Thom Tillis warned that withholding infrastructure funds could worsen the standoff.
“They need to be really careful with that, because they can create a toxic environment here,” Tillis said. “So hopefully they’re working with the leader, and the leader with them, on not creating more work to get us out of this posture.”
But Republican Senate Leader John Thune brushed aside concerns, dismissing claims that the spending freeze amounted to hostage-taking.
The funding freeze and ensuing political battle underscore Trump’s determination to utilize the shutdown as a means to reinforce his control over the $7 trillion federal budget, despite its constitutional status as the purview of Congress.
Previously, SaharaReporters reported that the White House Spokesperson, Karoline Claire Leavitt, said that the U.S. could not provide free healthcare for immigrants, whom she described as “illegal aliens” in the country.
Leavitt said this during a press conference on Wednesday, after the U.S. federal government was partially shut down due to Congress’s failure to pass a spending bill before the funding deadline.
The White House Spokesperson accused the Democrats in Congress of shutting down the government because of their partisan politics against President Donald Trump’s administration.
Leavitt said that the United States is soaked in debt of $37 trillion and cannot afford to provide free healthcare for “illegals” who she said broke American laws to enter the country.
Leavitt said, “Democrats in Congress have officially shut down the United States government. House Republicans passed a nonpartisan clean piece of legislation to extend current government funding into November 21 but nearly every single Democrat Senator voted against this bill.”
The longest in U.S. history, lasting 34 days, occurred between 2018 and 2019, also under Trump’s presidency.
President Trump has signaled that the funding lapse could be used to reduce the size of the federal workforce dramatically.
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, he reportedly warned, “We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programmes that they like.”
He added that “a lot of good” could come from government shutdowns, while suggesting that those at risk of losing their jobs were likely Democrats.
“And they’re Democrats; they’re going to be Democrats,” he said.
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