White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt spent much of her first briefing insisting that the new memo freezing potentially billions of dollars in federal aid was limited in scope, without clarifying what exactly that scope is.
“Again, direct assistance will not be impacted,” Leavitt said after being asked repeatedly about the action’s potential impacts, the topic that dominated the briefing. “I’ve been asked and answered about this memo, there are many other topics of the day.”
The surprise memo from the Office of Management and Budget late Monday night ordered a broad “temporary pause” on federal assistance, with carve-outs for Medicare, Social Security and aid “provided directly to individuals.” The action’s purpose, OMB said, was to halt aid “including, but not limited to, foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, [diversity, equity and inclusion], woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.”
Democrats condemned the move, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer deeming it “lawless, destructive, dangerous and cruel.” Some Republicans in Congress however — including top budget leaders — were on board. “I don’t have a problem with it,” Appropriations Chair Tom Cole told NOTUS.
Leavitt defended the move’s legality, saying the memo itself states “this is certainly within the confines of the law.” And she did list some programs that she said would not be impacted: Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, welfare benefits and “assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause.”
But asked repeatedly by reporters in the room about specific programs affected, she only said a list could be forthcoming from OMB. When asked specifically about Head Start or disaster aid, she broadly repeated that the directive “does not affect individual assistance that’s going to Americans.”
Sen. Chris Murphy posted on X during the briefing that Connecticut’s Head Start reimbursement system was down.
Leavitt also said she would have to get back to reporters on whether or not Medicaid would be impacted. A Q&A from OMB to congressional offices sent around the same time as the briefing and obtained by NOTUS suggested “mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause.”
Legal challenges are likely to come quickly against the freeze, as it becomes more clear which programs would have their money frozen. New York Attorney General Letitia James said on X that her office would “be taking imminent legal action” against the “unconstitutional” pause. Asked if the purpose for this freeze is to have it eventually make it to the Supreme Court to decide the president’s purview on impoundments, Leavitt denied.
“No, absolutely not,” she said.
The briefing room was packed to capacity with journalists eager to get a question in at the first briefing. Some journalists were waiting for a standing-only position for two hours before the scheduled start time. A White House Correspondents’ Association representative had to come in 15 minutes before the start of the briefing to ask people to stand clear of the aisle and not to obstruct the view of still photographers in the back of the room.
Once it began, the press briefing was otherwise largely familiar to how it’s been in the past, just with more questions given to nontraditional media. That’s something Leavitt said would be the new norm: She asked interested “content creators” and influencers to fill out a White House form to get into future briefings.
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Jasmine Wright is a reporter at NOTUS.