US politics: Confusion over Donald Trump’s spending crackdown remains, administration accuses news of being ‘fake’

Donald Trump and his staff are deeply frustrated with the reporting, from America’s media, in the last 24 hours.

Welcome, once again, to our live coverage of the Trump administration’s tone-setting and rather frenetic early weeks.

You’ll recall that yesterday was dominated by Donald Trump’s attempt to freeze spending across vast swathes of the American government. It caused confusion, mainly because it was unclear which government functions, exactly, were still funded.

There were also doubts about whether the President even had the power to unilaterally stop the spending in question, given appropriations are mostly handled by Congress.

Donald Trump, pictured at a White House event today. Picture: Roberto Schmidt/AFP

The controversy originated with a memo from the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in which acting director Matthew Vaeth ordered a funding freeze that would commence at 5pm on Tuesday, Washington D.C. time.

In his memo, Mr Vaeth said all agencies “must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by (Mr Trump’s) executive orders, including but not limited to financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organisations, DEI, woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal”.

This sparked something of a panic, as people wondered whether critical government programs – Medicaid and Social Security, for example – would be affected.

Legal challenges were launched pretty much immediately, and a federal judge temporarily blocked the freeze.

Fast forward to today. Mr Vaeth issued a new memo to all the federal agencies saying, quite simply: “OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have questions about implementing the President’s executive orders, please contact your agency general counsel.”

Righto. The original memo has been withdrawn then. As you were. Or has it? Because the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, then weighed in to stress that the freeze had not been rescinded.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” Ms Leavitt said.

“It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s executive orders on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

We await further clarification on which parts of the government, exactly, still have funding, and which do not.

Ms Leavitt is also at the centre of a lower-scale fight over her claim, apparently backed up by Elon Musk, that the US spent $US50 million on condoms sent to the Gaza Strip. This appears to be completely baseless.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Picture: Roberto Schmidt/AFP

Elsewhere today, Mr Trump’s nominee to lead the health department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was grilled by senators at a confirmation hearing.

And the President signed his first major piece of legislation, The Laken Riley Act, into law. The legislation requires federal law enforcement to detain non-citizens who are “charged with, arrested for, convicted of having committed, or admit to committing” certain crimes.

Read on for the latest updates.

Originally published as US politics: Confusion over Donald Trump’s spending crackdown remains, administration accuses news of being ‘fake’