OMB Director Russell Vought (heart, behind President Trump) is the lead defendant in a lawsuit introduced by 4 state attorneys normal over greater than $600 million in cuts to CDC grants introduced this week. Homeland Safety Sec. Kristi Noem and Inside Sec. Doug Burgum are additionally pictured within the Oval Workplace in June 2025.
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Pictures
It was deja vu from 2025: The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention this week introduced greater than $600 million in cuts to public well being grants in California, Illinois, Colorado and Minnesota — 4 Democratic-led states.
Straight away, attorneys normal within the affected states filed their lawsuit late Wednesday in a federal district courtroom in Illinois asking for the short-term restraining order.
And the subsequent day, a federal choose blocked the Trump administration’s motion with a short-term restraining order launched late Thursday.
In an opinion accompanying the orderU.S. District Choose Manish S. Shah wrote that although the said motive for the cancellations was that the grants didn’t align with the priorities of the CDC, “current statements plausibly recommend that the rationale for the path (to chop the funds) is hostility to what the federal authorities calls ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ or ‘sanctuary cities.'”
The entire course of aligns with the way in which the federal authorities has been working since President Trump’s second inauguration final 12 months. However the context is new. These grants weren’t all put in place by a earlier, Democratic administration. The $600 million is included within the funding invoice that handed with bipartisan assist in Congress and was signed into regulation by Trump himself simply weeks in the past.
“Integral to protecting folks secure”
In Santa Clara County, Calif., the official discover of grant terminations got here Thursday morning. “Two giant grants that we depend on for core features in public well being to maintain folks secure and wholesome have now been canceled,” says Dr. Sarah Rudmandirector of the county’s public well being division. “The best way these grants are utilized all through our division, they’re built-in with an enormous vary of actions we generally should do by regulation and are completely integral to protecting folks secure.”
For example, she says, one of many grants pays for a staffer of their public well being laboratory. “That workers member is essential to our general capability to check for issues most different labs cannot take a look at for, like Ebola and anthrax and measles,” she says. “We’re not going to cease testing for these illnesses as we speak, however our capacity to do it as nicely and as quick as we all the time do is straight away in danger.”
Santa Clara is only one of dozens of native well being departments focused within the grant cancellations. A joint assertion from different affected public well being departments stated the cuts may have an effect on all the pieces from HIV prevention in Chicago, firearm damage discount in Denver, and entry to reasonably priced, wholesome meals in Minneapolis.
Rudman says the sensation is “whiplash” when federal grants might be canceled all of the sudden with little rationalization, though she says she’s relieved the choose stepped in shortly to briefly block the cuts.
“It is completely crucial that we have now stability and predictability in our funding,” she says. “We have to plan forward and know we have now the sources to take action.”
New finances, similar sudden cuts
These newest grant cancellations observe a sample that started final 12 months when the second Trump administration started. Generally these choices have been reversed after public stress or efficiently overturned in courtroom.
On this case, the attorneys normal argue, the cancellations slot in with President Trump’s current threats to cease all federal funds to sure Democratic-led cities and states in retaliation for having insurance policies the president would not like.
“The Workplace of Administration and Price range (‘OMB’) then spent the final two weeks of January creating a success listing of funds for potential focusing on in disfavored States,” reads the grievance. “In early February, OMB issued a directive (the ‘Concentrating on Directive’) commanding companies to chop funding to Plaintiff States, beginning with greater than $600 million in CDC public-health funding.”
OMB didn’t reply to NPR’s request for remark. OMB Director Russell Vought is the lead defendant within the state AGs’ lawsuit, which additionally sues the Division of Well being and Human Providers and the CDC.
In the case of public well being division funding, “the entire cancellations that we have now seen over the previous 12 months or so do appear to have been directed from the Workplace of Administration and Price range,” says Adriane Casalottichief of presidency and public affairs on the Nationwide Affiliation of County and Metropolis Well being Officers. “It’s outdoors the norm of how federal public well being funding has gone for many years earlier than.”
Whereas the cancellations of grants in 2025 have been defined by HHS as essential to align the company’s work with the brand new administration’s priorities, Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and different Trump officers have now been in energy for a full 12 months. All the grants awarded since Trump’s inauguration have been authorised by his personal administration’s political appointees, Casalotti notes.
A number of the grants canceled this week have been even included in President Trump’s 2026 finances and within the bipartisan HHS finances that was handed into regulation this month and signed by Trump on Feb. 3.
“After we take a look at the general public well being infrastructure grants which were canceled in these states, Congress truly gave it a $10 million enhance of their closing regulation — it was supported within the Home (finances) invoice and the Senate invoice,” says Casalotti. “These funds have a ton of assist throughout the board.”
Three days’ discover
There was one thing completely different in regards to the grant cancellation course of this time, notes Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., rating member of the Home Appropriations Committee.
“We included a provision within the 2026 Labor-HHS (finances) invoice of notification, to form of cope with the Congress’s energy of the purse,” she says. Due to that provision, the appropriations committees within the Home and Senate obtained an emailed listing of the CDC grant cancellations earlier this week. The emails, obtained by NPR, embody an extended listing of grant numbers, and the rationale for every reads: “Inconsistent with Company Priorities” with a hyperlink to an “About CDC” webpage.
“Look, you probably have notification, you have bought public outrage,” DeLauro says. She credit the three days of discover with giving focused states time to file a lawsuit so shortly. “You understand, illnesses do not care who you voted for — Republicans, Democrats, Independents — People are going to be harm by these actions,” she says.
NPR reached out to Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-Louisiana., who chairs the HELP Committee which has oversight of HHS, and didn’t hear again by press time.
California Legal professional Common Robert Bonta predicted that the short-term restraining order could be adopted by a victory for the states within the case.
“I’ve stated it earlier than, and I am going to say it once more: If President Trump and those that work for him need to cease dropping in courtroom, they need to cease breaking the regulation,” Bonta stated in a press launch.
