“This is an extraordinary power grab,” says law professor Paul Schiff Berman.
A federal court has temporarily blocked a Trump administration memo that would have frozen federal grants and loans, potentially totaling trillions of dollars.
U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan issued the ruling just minutes before the freeze was set to take effect on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET. The pause will remain in effect until Monday. But the damage was felt: Local governments, schools, and nonprofit organizations scrambled to navigate the uncertainty until the ruling came down. And while the White House denied any connection between the freeze and the disruption, Medicaid online portals across the country experienced widespread issues.
Amid mass confusion, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the freeze as a “temporary pause” aimed at ensuring these organizations comply with President Trump’s executive actions, particularly on issues like “DEI, woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal” — the latter of which was never signed into law.
To shed light on the legal implications of this decision, we turned to three experts.
David Super, Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University
In a statement to Katie Couric Media, Super echoed concerns from Democrats, calling Trump’s move a “constitutional crisis” and emphasizing the president’s disregard for the law. “Trump’s actions show contempt for the law on a broad scale,” Super said. “His freeze memorandum and several executive orders undermine binding contracts and statutes that mandate the spending of appropriated funds.”
He further criticized Trump’s approach: “He is attempting to cancel regulations without following the Administrative Procedure Act, which has prevented abrupt regulatory changes for nearly 80 years. Additionally, he is replacing a non-partisan civil service with patronage hires who lack the expertise to effectively govern.”
Super concluded, “Without respect for the Rule of Law — whether it’s the Constitution, the Impoundment Control Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, or federal merit employment statutes — the fundamental structure of our democracy is at risk.”
Peter Shane, Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University Law School
Shane did not hold back, calling Trump’s memo “a brazen violation” of the rule of law and a direct assault on Congress’s legislative powers, particularly its control over federal spending.
Shane rejected the notion that the president had the constitutional authority to defer spending in pursuit of what the memo framed as a fight against “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.” He added, “If Trump gets away with this, combined with his purge of inspectors general and unlawful actions against NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] member Gwynne Wilcox, the Madisonian checks and balances system is gone.”
Paul Schiff Berman, Professor at George Washington University Law School
Berman called Trump’s federal funding freeze “an extraordinary power grab.” He pointed out that the Constitution grants Congress the spending power, making the President’s actions unconstitutional. “Trump is unilaterally usurping Congress’s constitutionally granted power,” he told Katie Couric Media.
He also noted that the freeze violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, designed to prevent presidents from halting funding unilaterally. While Trump’s allies may argue the act is unconstitutional, Berman believes even the conservative-leaning Supreme Court is unlikely to side with the president. “The most famous precedent here is Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer, where the Court blocked Truman’s attempts to seize steel production authority during the Korean War,” Berman said, referencing Justice Robert Jackson’s concurrence on presidential limits.
