Donald Trump

Pritzker calls Trump funding freeze ‘illegal' after judge blocks order

Pritzker addressed media on Tuesday afternoon amid continuing fallout over the freeze order

As a freeze on federal grants ordered by President Donald Trump's administration was paused by a judge, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker blasted the executive order as "illegal."

Pritzker addressed media Tuesday afternoon, just minutes after the order was blocked by a federal judge until at least Feb. 3.

The governor was sharply critical of the order, issued Monday and slated to go into effect Tuesday afternoon.

“What the President is trying to do is illegal," Pritzker said. "I know these are challenging times, and the Trump administration is trying to confuse the American people. That's why it's so important that we speak plainly.”

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul signed onto a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the funding freeze, which was ordered by Acting Office of Management and Budget director Matthew Vaeth in a memo issued Monday.

It was another judge that had ordered the halt of the funding freeze, but Raoul said the idea that the president would act to half the dispersal of funds authorized by Congress was unconstitutional.

“January 20th was an inauguration, not a coronation,” Raoul said during a virtual press conference. “Congress is given the power to appropriate the funding.”

A massive outage in Medicaid portal systems on Tuesday left officials in all 50 states unable to access programs required for reimbursement for payments into the system, and while the Trump administration said the funding freeze did not impact those payments, Pritzker expressed doubt about their denials.

"Their intention was not to pull it back online today," he said. "You think it was an accident the memo came out last night, and today our state agencies couldn’t access those systems? It’s not. The intention is to disrupt."

The governor said there was "no communication" with states about what programs would be targeted and which would be spared by the funding freeze, leading to a mad scramble of activity as agencies and organizations tried to figure out whether they would be impacted.

"When our agencies reached out to the federal agencies, we literally were informed that they are not to speak with us," he said.

It is expected the funding freeze, if allowed to go into effect, could impact trillions in federal spending on everything from healthcare research to education programs.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” said a memo from the Office of Management and Budget released Monday.

While Medicare and Social Security are not supposed to be impacted by the freeze, there is uncertainty over whether Medicaid will be. That uncertainty caused widespread concern Tuesday as the portal servicing Medicaid payments went down in all 50 states, though the White House said the portal would be “back online shortly.”

As of October, more than 72 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid, which provides health coverage to primarily low-income Americans, in addition to pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities, according to NBC News.

A White House spokesperson told CNBC they would “check back on that” when asked if Medicaid payments would be impacted by the order.

Medical research grants, the Environmental Protection Agency, and a variety of other programs are expected to be impacted by the funding freeze, which is scheduled to last for at least 10 days.

The Education Department says the White House freeze on federal aid will not affect student loans and Pell Grants.

According to a clarifying memo issued Tuesday by OMB, food stamps, small business loans, Head Start, and rental assistance are expected to be excluded from the freeze.

Programs that fund school lunches for students are among those potentially frozen by the move, a decision defended by Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick in a CNN interview.

"Before I was even 13 years old, I was picking berries in the field, before child labor laws that precluded that. I was a paper boy, and when I was in high school, I worked my entire way through," McCormick said. "You’re telling me that kids who stay at home instead of going to work at Burger King, McDonald’s, during the summer, should stay at home and get their free lunch instead of going to work? I think we need to have a top-down review."

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