• President Donald Trump unleashed nationwide chaos by announcing a pause on federal funding for a sweeping range of programs, pending a review on whether they line up with his priorities. If Trump gets his way, a shockingly long list of normie, everyday components to the fabric of American life could lose funding: child care, housing programs, services for homeless people, hospitals, public safety, disaster relief, veterans’ care, and so much else.

• Right before the pause was set to go into effect at 5 p.m. ET, District Judge Loren L. AliKhan (who was appointed by former President Joe Biden) blocked the action. The freeze is now halted until Monday. At the buzzer!

• The administration says that services including Social Security, Medicare, and food stamps won’t be affected… but, regardless, there have been problems with the payment systems. Smooth rollout, boys! For everyone with student loans: The federal pause would only apply to discretionary loans, according to an Education Department memo first obtained by What A Day. Other types of loans, including federal Pell grants and those that provide assistance to low-income families, won’t be affected. But the Trump administration is still working to “identify other programs that are not covered” by the pause, according to the memo. 

• Clearly, the Trump administration didn’t think all this through — that memo was sent to Education Department staff this afternoon, half-a-day after the pause was announced. This story has moved so fast that it’s been hard to keep track of exactly what will be affected. But one thing is certain: Trump is trying to reshape the American government as quickly as possible, as if he’d like to smash it into pieces and then put it back together in a shape he likes better. “We’ve got what amounts to 60 years of tradition and policies that are thrown up in the air,” Donald Kettl, former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, told the Washington Post.

• Some Republican lawmakers admitted that even they’re uncomfortable with the pause: “Obviously all of our constituents are concerned,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) told the Post. “But the Biden administration was shoveling money out the door so fast that there’s real questions as to whether they went through the proper protocols on it.” So, the appropriate response is to freeze everything?

• Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James said she’ll ask a Manhattan federal court to block Trump’s directive: “My office will be taking imminent legal action against this administration’s unconstitutional pause on federal funding,” she wrote on X. Attorneys general in California, Massachusetts, Arizona and New Jersey have also said they’re looking into the matter, or plan on filing lawsuits. 

• Who’s going to win? Trump has long voiced his interest in stopping federal spending that’s doled out by Congress, a move called impoundment. That used to be easy to do, but after former President Richard Nixon canceled billions of dollars in spending, Congress passed a law that forces a president to get permission from lawmakers first. 

• Surprise surprise, Trump and his cronies believe that law is unconstitutional, and MAGAworld wants to unleash his power to cut federal spending and reshape the government in his autocratic image. However, courts have historically sided with the law’s supporters, who argue that the president’s power to, you know, bring almost every program in the United States to a screeching halt, is in fact quite limited. The freeze “is clearly unlawful,” Georgetown Law Professor David Super wrote on X.

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