President Donald Trump's administration has canceled a hastily announced plan to freeze federal aid, including USDA’s climate and equity grants.
The Office of Management and Budget issued a brief memo Wednesday rescinding the plan, which a federal judge had blocked the day before.
OMB's vague announcement of the freeze Monday left recipients of federal grants and loans confused about the scope of the pause. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, said Tuesday the pause only applied to programs — namely diversity and green initiatives — covered by Trump’s first-week barrage of executive orders.
“This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs,” Leavitt said.
A follow-up document from the Office of Management and Budget said the government would continue payments made directly to individuals, including Medicare, Social Security and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, as well as aid to farmers.
Do you support President Trump’s now-canceled plan to freeze federal aid, including USDA climate and equity grants?
But even these clarifications left considerable uncertainty, as federal agencies' deadline to choose which programs to freeze was more than a week after the freeze was set to begin Jan. 28.
As a result, nonprofits, universities and other entities were left wondering if existing grants would be suspended or canceled.
Leavitt said Wednesday that the White House was not abandoning its plans for a funding freeze or giving up on Trump's effort to defund programs he dislikes. Instead, she said, it was merely dropping the first attempt at implementation because of the confusion.
The House Agriculture Committee Republicans said Trump was elected to straighten out the country's finances and blamed the confusion on misinformation and fearmongering.
Democrats blamed the confusion on the administration's bungled rollout.
"The chaos and confusion the White House caused for millions of Americans yesterday was reckless and unnecessary," Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Wednesday on social media.
This story has been updated.
