Trump's funding freeze awakens the "Resistance"

Senate Democrats moved with rare dexterity to block a GOP-led bill in one of the few places where they have real leverage, and blanketed social media with panicked reports from their constituents.

• House Democrats called an emergency meeting for Wednesday to plot a "comprehensive three-pronged counteroffensive" — targeting appropriations, litigation and communications.

Nonprofits — later joined by Democrat-led states — stormed the federal court system with lawsuits, leading a judge to temporarily halt the funding freeze at 5pm ET Tuesday.

What they're saying: "This is cruelty, this is lawlessness, this is a heist done on a national scale," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters in one of several press conferences by top Democrats, vowing to "fight this every way we can."

• "We need Democrats to use every procedural maneuver to grind things to [a] stop and use every media tool to raise alarm and allow public pressure to build," Ezra Levin, co-founder of progressive group Indivisible, said in a statement.
• "Shut down the Senate, refuse to allow them to steamroll, and take this fight to every town hall, courtroom, and news outlet."

State of play: The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent shockwaves through Washington on Monday night with a memo directing agencies to "temporarily pause" grants, loans and federal financial assistance programs to ensure they align with Trump's priorities.

• "This is not a blanket pause," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stressed as she was bombarded with questions about the freeze in her first press briefing Tuesday.
• "Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits, assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause," she said.

Leavitt then told reporters she would check into whether Medicaid — the nation's largest health insurance program, covering 72 million mostly low-income Americans — would be affected.

• In the meantime, reports flooded in from all 50 states about Medicaid reimbursement systems being inaccessible — prompting the White House to issue a statement acknowledging an online "outage."
• "We have confirmed no payments have been affected — they are still being processed and sent. We expect the portal will be back online shortly," Leavitt said.

The big picture: For more than a week, Trump has overwhelmed his critics with an unrelenting flood of executive orders, government purges and bureaucratic maneuvering.

• On Tuesday alone, Trump offered to buy out any federal employees who resign by Feb. 6, and signed an executive order aiming to restrict youth gender-affirming care — diverting headlines from the funding freeze.
• Some of Trump's moves have pushed the lines of legality, including his mass firing of government watchdogs and purging of pro-worker influence at the National Labor Relations Board.
• But nothing has broken through like the funding memo, which sent state governments, nonprofits, schools, emergency workers and even some GOP officials scrambling to determine whether they'd be affected.

Between the lines: Besides billions of dollars in federal funding, something far more fundamental could be at stake in the coming legal battle — Congress' power of the purse.

• Trump and his nominee for OMB director, Russ Vought, have argued that the Impoundment Control Act — a Nixon-era law that restricts presidents from withholding funding passed by Congress — is unconstitutional.
• An FAQ sheet distributed by the OMB Tuesday claims Trump's "temporary pause" doesn't constitute an "impoundment." But that hasn't satisfied Democrats, given Vought's defense of the impoundment power in his confirmation hearing.
• "What happened last night is the most direct assault on the authority of Congress, I believe, in the history of the United States," Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) warned Tuesday.