Donald Trump’s spending freeze blocked by US judge | BBC News

meanwhile in the United States a judge has blocked a government freeze on Federal loans grants and other assistance the pause was due to come into effect on Tuesday and would have put trillions of dollars on hold the freeze was challenged by a group of non-governmental organizations and some democrat run states are also planning legal action the White House said the pause was intended to bring spending into line with President Trump's anti-woke executive orders but direct payments to individuals like social benefits would continue so what does this pause mean it means no more funding for illegal

Dei programs it means no more funding for the green news scam that has t cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars it means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies no more funding for green New Deal Social Engineering policies again people who are uh receiving individual assistance assistance you will continue to receive that and president Trump is looking out for you by issuing this pause uh because he is being good Steward of your taxpayer dollars well that's what the White House has to say about it let's now speak

to expert on us and UK security professor of international politics at Bermingham University David dun David welcome it's all happening at break next speed isn't it in terms of the appointments and also these rolling out of executive orders where are we in the Trump agenda uh what we are is is him absolutely trying to both set the pace of of the policy agenda but also exerting his authority as the uh not the just the the first amount equals in the government of America but actually the person who dictates every aspects so th this uh executive

order yesterday to actually try and uh freeze funding was an attempt to actually show that he was in charge rather than actually uh Congress Congress has passed all these laws over the years that funds this trillion doar of of uh worth of public programs 260 different Federal uh ways of spending money on different aspects of provision for the American people and what he was saying is I have the authority to stop that and he he tried that and of course he was challenging the courts but it's performative politics this is a thing that that plays

well for his base and also actually is a way of trying to get his tax cuts funded because what Trump wants to do is to actually fund $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and he needs to find a way of doing that and part of that is by cutting these programs across uh schools hospitals nonprofits forestry projects water projects and the like but from his perspective it appears that Congress and the Senate and for that M matter judges have significant power to throw a spanner in the works yeah this is what what he's about so

the executive orders are instructions to the different Departments of of of state in America to do things but he can't contradict American law laws but he's trying to do that but what it requires is for people to take lawsuits saying your executive orders are illegal and therefore I challenge you so it's a qu a question of a power uh uh um contest in Washington as to who has the ability to direct the government to do things and and Trump is pushing his luck really by actually trying to actually extend the role of the presidency into

these areas and saying I have the authority to stop these projects because I'm in charge of the executive branch and Congress and the states have to come back and say no you haven't we will challenge you in the courts so you can expect much more of this much more of this to and for much more conflict uh over the way in which America is governed and who ultimately has responsibility for all these Federal programs but in terms of inside the administration would you say that it is looking as expected much more cohesive than last time

around well certainly Trump has been much more prepared uh than last time round there if you go back eight years ago he was still floundering to find people this time he's he's actually been much more prepared uh things like project um 2025 have aligned up the policy issue agendas and he's lined up to the people he wants to get through Congress and he has so far got his controversial picks uh through the Senate people like Pete hes the new chief of the Pentagon someone who lacks experience and is a very controversial character has been approved

and this week we'll see RFK Jr come up for confirmation uh by the Senate and he has put put a huge amount of pressure on Senators to approve his picks and threatened them with being primary with Elon musk's money if they refused to support his agenda so he's showing his total control of the Republican Party his ability to get things through Congress and his ability to actually move forward on a whole variety of policy initiatives with a whole bunch of radical disruptors as his cabinet picks in order to achieve those goals thank you very much

indeed