Trump’s acting Office of Management and Budget director, Matthew Vaeth, wrote a memorandum that sets a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline for all agencies to shut off federal grants and loans. Agencies are also directed to submit a review of the affected funding to the OMB by Feb. 10, by which time Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee for OMB director, is expected to be confirmed.

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“The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar,” Vaeth’s memo reads. “This memorandum requires Federal agencies to identify and review all Federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements.”

Vaeth said the pause will allow the White House “time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President’s priorities.”

The Trump administration did exempt certain beneficiary programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and “payments to individuals,” from the pause, yet multiple states, including Hawaii and Illinois, reported being locked out of the Medicaid portal Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, federal lawmakers and nonprofit groups quickly denounced Trump’s action, with some Democrats likening the move to policy under Nazi Germany. Democrats consistently compared Trump to dictator Adolf Hitler throughout his 2024 campaign, including former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Tuesday morning that, “in a blitzkrieg, Trump is trying to collapse our democracy — and probably our economy — and seize control.”

Senate Democrats were slated to hold a press conference Tuesday morning about Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6, 2021, rioters but quickly announced they would instead focus on Trump’s funding decision.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters that Trump’s move amounted to “cruelty” and “lawlessness.”

“Every one of our offices has been deluged with calls from people who are in panic,” Schumer said. “This is a heist done on a national scale, no matter how much he may believe he does. The president does not have the authority to ignore the law, and we’re going to fight this in every way that we can.”

Schumer added that he had spoken to New York Attorney General Letitia James earlier Tuesday and that states would quickly be challenging the president in the courts.

FULL LIST OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS, ACTIONS, AND PROCLAMATIONS TRUMP HAS MADE AS PRESIDENT

Meanwhile, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the vice chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate and House Appropriations committees, respectively, wrote a letter to the White House on Monday night calling for administration officials to stop the pause.

“We write with extreme alarm about the Administration’s efforts to undermine Congress’s power of the purse, threaten our national security, and deny resources for states, localities, American families, and businesses,” the letter reads. “The scope of what you are ordering is breathtaking, unprecedented, and will have devastating consequences across the country. We write today to urge you in the strongest possible terms to uphold the law and the Constitution and ensure all federal resources are delivered in accordance with the law.”

In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) expressed concerns “about both the legality of the president attempting to stop or freeze laws explicitly passed by Congress as well as the damage this action will cause to farmers, business owners, and struggling families.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state is reviewing Trump’s “sweeping” directive but warned that “any pause would hurt families and threaten public health & safety.”

“We’re prepared to protect CA’s people and programs from [Trump’s] reckless and dangerous actions,” Bonta posted Tuesday morning on X.

Trump has zeroed in on California state leadership during the response to the recent Los Angeles-area wildfires. Before entering office, the president reignited his long-standing feud with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) over the state’s water conservation policies, frequently suggesting he would withhold federal disaster funding without reforms from the Newsom administration.

Trump surveyed the Los Angeles cleanup effort alongside Newsom on Friday, but the California governor’s office did not respond to inquiries about Trump’s pause on grant funding.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes similarly said the pause “risks disaster.”

“Children could miss out on school lunches, victims of crime could lose critical assistance, and law enforcement agencies could be defunded across the country if it stands,” she wrote on X.

Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, called Trump’s pause a “potential 5-alarm fire for nonprofits and the people and communities they serve.”

“From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to closing homeless shelters, halting food assistance, reducing safety from domestic violence, and shutting down suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives,” Yentel said in a statement. “This order could decimate thousands of organizations and leave neighbors without the services they need.”

Nonprofit organization Meals on Wheels Association of America predicted the pause would “presumably halt service to millions of vulnerable seniors who have no other means of purchasing or preparing meals.”

“The lack of clarity and uncertainty right now is creating chaos for local Meals on Wheels providers not knowing for sure whether they should be serving meals today,” the group said in a statement.

Indivisible, a progressive grassroots activism group, delivered a call to action for Democrats and the media to “use every procedural maneuver to grind things to a stop” and “allow public pressure to build.”

“Not to be alarmist, but this is the most radical presidential action I’ve ever seen,” Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin said in a statement. “He’s straight up seizing Congress’ budget power. What do laws matter if the mad king’s whims dictate what gets enforced and where money goes?

“We need Dems to use every procedural maneuver to grind things to stop and every media tool to raise alarm and allow public pressure to build. Shut it the f*** down.”

Topher Shapiro, an associate OMB director during the Biden administration, said Vaeth’s memo reads “like a hostage note written directly by Russ Vought, who is not confirmed” and that “OMB would believe this is illegal.”

“This is cruel,” Shapiro wrote in a statement, noting the pause will affect opioid prevention and mental health funding, resources for community health centers, suicide prevention programs, HIV and AIDS treatment, and grants to help states tackle the growing bird flu epidemic, which is driving up national egg prices to historic highs.

“Russ Vought is illegally carrying out his ideological agenda with greatest harm to the most vulnerable — including many in the working class and rural communities who voted for Trump,” he continued.

Vought will likely be confirmed early next month, but Democrats heartily opposed his nomination to lead the OMB a second time. He has vowed to pursue Trump’s goal of shrinking federal spending through the use of impoundment, which was effectively outlawed by legislation passed in the 1970s.

Vought, Trump allies, and the president himself argue that the presidency has a constitutional duty to prevent funding appropriated by Congress from being disbursed if it runs contrary to the national interest.