© 2025 WSIU Public Broadcasting
WSIU Public Broadcasting
Member-Supported Public Media from Southern Illinois University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
91.9 FM is operating on low power due to storm damage. Thank you for your patience as we work to restore service.

Trump's federal funding freeze on hold — as 'chaos, confusion and fear' grip Chicago

Gov. J.B. Pritzker discusses President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze on Tuesday.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere
/
Chicago Sun-Times
Gov. J.B. Pritzker discusses President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze on Tuesday.

Government leaders from City Hall to Springfield and Washington were thrown into chaos Tuesday following a directive from President Donald Trump to temporarily freeze federal grants, loans and other funding assistance, pending a spending analysis by a new White House administration aiming to root out “wokeness” in federal spending.

Before the day was over, a federal judge’s order had put a hold on the spending freeze at least until early next week, but leaders of universities, nonprofits and other groups that rely on federal dollars were still grappling with how potential funding cuts might affect them.

While Medicaid reimbursements to the state initially appeared to be on the Trump chopping block, the system was back online later in the day after what the Trump White House chalked up to a technical glitch. More than 3 million lower-income Illinoisans rely on Medicaid, the health insurance system that splits costs between the state and federal levels.

Still, Gov JB Pritzker reignited his longstanding war with Trump, calling the president’s actions illegal and accusing his administration of lying during a hastily arranged Tuesday news conference.

“Donald Trump’s administration is lying to you. The White House’s attempt to walk back what they did today does not match what we saw on the ground. They assured us that Medicaid would not be affected. That was a lie,” Pritzker said. “It’s not an accident. The intention here is to disrupt. The intention here is to make cuts, and it will affect people across our state.”

In a memo issued late Monday on freezing potentially trillions of dollars in federal funding, Matthew Vaeth, Trump’s acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration was evaluating funding with an eye toward “ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government.”

“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,” Vaeth said, adding that agencies would have to complete comprehensive analyses.

“In the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders,” Vaeth wrote.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined 21 other states and the District of Columbia in filing a federal lawsuit to challenge the funding freeze. The suit was filed minutes before a federal judge in Washington blocked the freeze, which would have taken effect at 4 p.m. Central Time.

“This unconstitutional pause in funding will have a devastating impact on the public safety, prosperity and quality of life of all,” Raoul said on Tuesday. He pointed to programs that could be affected, including the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, law enforcement programs, veterans’ support groups, Head Start and child care programs, university research, support for farmers and infrastructure investments.

“Congress is given the power to appropriate the funding. The executive branch cannot unilaterally disregard those appropriations passed by a separate and equal house of government,” Raoul said.

Pritzker’s office said state agencies began having trouble accessing federal funding web portals and disbursement systems Tuesday morning. The Democratic governor said state agencies were able to access the Medicaid system by mid-afternoon, but said that it did temporarily prevent payments for services.

“This morning, along with all 50 states across the country, we discovered that our ability to access critical federal funding had been cut off, and now the administration would like us to believe that these were just coincidental website outages,” Pritzker said.

“Donald Trump and his administration have not earned the benefit of the doubt. They are either lying to us or they are critically incompetent. This is what happens when you staff the federal government full of Project 2025 contributors that don’t have any experience in government and don’t think that the laws apply to them.”

Big potential impact on Chicago

Mayor Brandon Johnson questioned Trump’s authority to withhold funding appropriated by Congress, even temporarily.

“These are unprecedented attempts to defund child care or to defund infrastructure projects,” Johnson said at a City Hall news conference. “This is something that is well outside the purview of the executive office.”

Johnson said U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Illinois Democrats, assured him that “they are going to continue to fight on behalf of the residents of Chicago.

“These appropriations have been mandated by the legislative branch. These are laws. As a country of laws and democracy, we prefer when we have leaders who actually are committed to upholding that law,” the mayor said.

Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said she was in the process of analyzing what impact the freeze would have on the city’s $17.1 billion budget and on “any existing projects and initiatives.”

The potential impact of even a temporary freeze could be staggering. Budget Director Annette Guzman said an analysis of all federal grant funding received by the city last year, as well as future appropriations enacted by Congress, showed that roughly $4 billion hangs in the balance.

“We don’t know the full implications of what OMB’s actions will mean and we don’t know what potentially Congress will do based on the letter that came out,” Guzman said. “There’s varying degrees of what we think could be impacted based on pronouncements from the Trump administration both before coming into office as well as since they’ve taken office.”

Johnson urged city employees and delegate agencies not to hit the panic button just yet.

“I just want to underscore as I’ve spoken with our senators — we’re not entirely sure if he’s working within the framework of his authority,” the mayor said.

“So, it’s a legitimate question in terms of what this so-called `pause’ means. No one has been able to determine whether or not an executive branch has the ability to … rescind a law that has been specified in terms of appropriations.”

In a separate media briefing, Duckworth said the Trump administration was “executing on the plan that they basically printed and distributed to everybody before the election,” referring to deep cuts outlined in the so-called Project 2025 agenda ahead of last year’s presidential election.

“He is in violation of the law, bottom line, and so I don’t see that Congress needs to pass anything new, since we’ve already passed the laws. They just simply need to be carried out because he’s in violation of [the] law at this point,” Duckworth said.

Durbin called the freeze unconstitutional and “above all else, it’s inhumane.”

“Every American relies on federal funding — from public safety, disaster relief, medical research funding, and small business loans to Head Start and child care programs, veterans care, nutrition assistance, food inspections, and so much more,” Durbin said in a statement. “Denying critical funding for our families will not make America great.”

Chicago Transit Authority officials said they would hold the Trump administration to “the binding and legal commitment” they have already gotten for federal funding on the Red Line extension project.

“As a result, we do not interpret any recent activity to have any impact on the federal government’s commitment to fund this essential transit project,” a CTA spokesperson said, adding that they were “reviewing the latest executive order as it relates to future federal funds for CTA beyond funding grant agreements already in place.”

Cuts to research, violence prevention and health care

While Chicago area officials grappled with what the federal funding freeze might mean, researchers at the University of Chicago were already being directed to rein in any work that relies on dollars from Washington.

In a memo, University of Chicago Provost Katherine Baicker told faculty not to “purchase new supplies or equipment, start new experiments, embark on funded travel, etc.”

“This is not a request that I make lightly. The research enterprise is at the core of our University’s mission and is of profound importance to the daily work of our faculty, researchers, staff, and students. I also know that this is insufficient guidance and that you must have many questions (as do I),” Baicker wrote.

“I wish that I had more information to share now, but will continue to be in touch as we learn more. But we must for now proceed under the assumption that grant expenditures incurred after today while this memorandum is in effect may not be covered by federal funding.”

Community activists also sounded the alarm on federal dollars being cut off for violence prevention programs.

“We must stand up and resist this fascism that is taking over our country. And we must do it now,” said South Side pastor Rev. Michael Pfleger.

Providers at community health centers throughout Illinois stood to lose immediate access to millions of dollars in federal grant funding, and feared other public dollars were at stake.

The immediate impact in Illinois was “chaos, confusion and fear,” said Alyssa Sianghio, the CEO of PCC Community Wellness Center, which has clinics on the West Side and in surrounding suburbs.

She said there were two financial buckets on hold. One is federal grant dollars Sianghio receives directly from the federal government. For PCC this comes to about $8 million a year out of a roughly $50 million annual budget.

“Sometimes up to a quarter of our monthly budget comes from grant funds specifically,” Sianghio said. “As we think about all that we’re doing caring for 50,000 people, if a quarter of our funding is just immediately cut off it makes you wonder how long we can sustain it.”

Local education leaders say high-volume research institutions, including the University of Illinois in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign, could be hit particularly hard if grants for ongoing research were halted.

Lisa Castillo Richmond, executive director of the Partnership for College Completion, added that a freeze could have a chilling effect on college-going and completion, particularly among first-generation students and students of color.

“While this will negatively affect every institution, data shows these actions always have disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations, the students and institutions that are most reliant on federal and state funding — working-class students, first generation college-goers, students from low-income families, Black, and Latinx students, and the institutions that serve them,” Castillo Richmond said in a statement.

Contributing: David Struett, WBEZ reporters Kristen Schorsch and Anna Savchenko

As a WSIU donor, you don’t simply watch or listen to public media programs, you are a partner. By making a gift, you help WSIU produce, purchase, and broadcast programs you care about and enjoy – every day of the year.