Quick turnaround: Trump short-circuits funding controversy

The funding flap was particularly important right now because Democrats and many in the media, itching to oppose Donald Trump, had been completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume and scope of his executive actions in the first 10 days of his presidency. The funding issue gave them something to grab on to.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) response was a classic Democratic attack: “It’s outrageous that preschoolers who need school lunches, seniors who need hot food from Meals on Wheels, nursing home workers who need Medicaid funding, and other Americans could have to worry about losing funding due to Donald Trump,” she tweeted, vowing to “keep fighting back.” Warren’s fellow Democrat, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), quickly outdid his colleague. “A president is not a king, and a law is not a suggestion,” Merkley said. “Trump’s illegal funding freeze is a constitutional crisis.”

The rhetoric was Trump Controversy Step A. Step B followed quickly — going to court. Democrats found a recent Biden appointee on the bench in Washington who issued a temporary stop to the measure.

Some things about the order were clear. It was not designed to affect any entitlement spending, any federal benefit spending, and indeed any spending that was specifically outlined by Congress. Instead, it appeared to target discretionary, ideological spending that ran counter to the Trump administration’s positions. This is from the Office of Management and Budget memorandum on the freeze: “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.”

That’s the sort of thing the order was designed to target, making it entirely consistent with everything the new Trump White House has done since noon on Jan. 20. At the same time, though, the OMB memo did not make entirely clear what the freeze did not apply to, allowing Warren and others to go to the races.

That’s where things stood on Wednesday. Democrats were clearly happy and united. They had been waiting for Trump to stumble, make some sort of mistake, do something, anything they could pounce on. And then he did. Democrats could reasonably expect to milk the situation until the next controversy arose.

But then Trump did something surprising. He withdrew the OMB memo. Just pulled it back, leaving the issue for another day. On one hand, it was a very un-Trumpy thing to do — usually the president is in for the long fight. On the other hand, it was an appealingly simple way to defuse the situation — just move on. 

It showed a Trump White House radically focused on getting things done. When something got in the way, in part the White House’s own mistake, Trump moved on. It was clear evidence of the more intentional second administration. And indeed, Trump spent Wednesday not only signing the Laken Riley Act into law but issuing other executive orders reflecting campaign promises and priorities.

Then, unfortunately, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, fresh off an impressive debut on Tuesday, suggested that nothing had really changed, that the withdrawal of the OMB memo was just to short-circuit the court case, and that the administration’s planned funding freeze was still in effect. The effect of Leavitt’s statement was not entirely clear — the OMB memo was, in fact, withdrawn — but its effect was to push the courts to keep the case alive. 

It’s not clear where things go now. But what seems most likely is that Trump will go on to other actions on Thursday and keep his administration’s extraordinary momentum going rather than get bogged down in a fight over a poorly drafted OMB memo that Democrats want to turn into the most important document in the world. The second Trump administration really does operate differently than the first.