President Donald Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, is attributing the American public’s confusion — including among state and federal lawmakers — about a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, which ordered a freeze on potentially trillions of dollars in federal funding, with limited specifics, to what he claims is false reporting from “left-wing media outlets.”

Many have suggested the freeze itself is unlawful, citing the U.S. Constitution vesting the power of the purse with Congress, not the president, a 1974 federal law, and a 1975 U.S. Supremer Court case. Late Tuesday afternoon a federal judge issued a short, temporary block on a portion of the freeze, CNN reported.

But the language in the memo is confusing, many say. In fact, some attribute what appears to be a nationwide shutdown of Medicaid portals across the country to the memo’s vagueness.

“I can’t help it if left-wing media outlets published a fake news story that caused confusion,” Miller told Tapper.

“We just talked to Congressman Don Bacon, a Republican, a Trump supporter. We just interviewed him,” CNN’s Jake Tapper told Miller. “He said that there was a lot of confusion. He said that the executive —”

READ MORE: ‘Despair and Violence’: RFK Jr. Is a ‘Predator’ Says Caroline Kennedy in ‘Damning’ Video

“Yes,” Miller interjected. “Created by the by the media, Jake,” Miller interjected. “The OMB guidance memo, if you read it, is as clear as day.”

Calling it “confusingly written,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said, “Parts of it are about DEI, parts are about disbursement.”

“Yeah, DEI’s suspended,” Miller replied. “It is, yeah, DEI’s suspended. That is correct.”

“Right, no, I’m just saying, like it’s kind of all over the map and there is confusion and it’s not just liberal media,” Tapper replied.

“I’m saying that a false story was put out that people responded to. It’s unfortunate that the people put out a false story. That’s all I’m saying, Jake,” Miller alleged.

READ MORE: ‘Hostage Note’: Trump’s Funding Freeze Will Deliver ‘Greatest Harm’ Says OMB Veteran

Critics blasted Miller.

“If yesterday’s OMB memo was ‘as clear as day,’ why would OMB put out a new memo today that contradicted it in key respects?” asked Eric Columbus, a former DOJ and DHS appointee.

MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen added, “Miller says the OMB memo is clear as day … the OMB memo refers to government programs that are part of the green new deal. The green new deal is not part of US law.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Miller: I can’t help it if left wing media outlets published a fake news story that caused confusion.

Tapper: Don bacon, a Republican, said that there was a lot of confusion.

Miller: Created by the media. If you read the memo, it’s clear

Tapper: It’s confusingly written. pic.twitter.com/ZJCbwBsKTs

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 28, 2025

The OMB memo, as published by The Washington Post, can be read here.

READ MORE: Trump DOJ Fires ‘More Than a Dozen’ Prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Team

This article has been updated to add new quotes from Miller and an expanded video.

Image via Reuters

Calling him a “predator” with “dangerous” views, former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy sent what is being called a “damning” letter and video message urging U.S. Senators not to confirm her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan under President Barack Obama, and Ambassador to Australia under President Joe Biden, has almost never spoken publicly about her family, which she notes in her message to the Senate.

“It is noteworthy and significant that Caroline Kennedy, who is famously private about family matters, felt moved to issue this searing indictment of RFK Jr.’s nomination as HHS Secy,” wrote former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod.

“WOW,” declared Jackie Calmes, a veteran journalist who has covered the White House, Congress and national politics. “I wasn’t expecting her statement to be so powerful, so damning.”

Kennedy made clear her thoughts on RFK Jr.’s qualifications and expressed that his “personal qualities” pose great concern for her. The Washington Post was the first to report on her letter.

She also suggested an element of hypocrisy on his part, saying, “Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids, while building a following hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.”

READ MORE: ‘Hostage Note’: Trump’s Funding Freeze Will Deliver ‘Greatest Harm’ Says OMB Veteran

“Overseeing the FDA, the NIH, the CDC, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, agencies that are charged with protecting the most vulnerable among us, is an enormous responsibility and one that Bobby is unqualified to fill. He lacks any relevant government, financial, management or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed. These facts alone should be disqualifying.”

“We are a close generation of 28 cousins who have been through a lot together,” Kennedy explained, noting that she has “never wanted to speak publicly about my family members and their challenges.”

She expressed that the “doctors and nurses, researchers, scientists and caregivers” in the American healthcare system “deserve better than Bobby Kennedy, and so do the rest of us.”

What she described as a lack of qualifications and disqualifying views on vaccines, however, was not the only impetus for her speaking out.

“I’ve known Bobby my whole life, we grew up together. It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets, because Bobby himself is a predator. He’s always been charismatic, able to attract others through the strength of his personality, his willingness to take risks and break the rules. I watched his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction,” she lamented.

READ MORE: Trump DOJ Fires ‘More Than a Dozen’ Prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Team

“His basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the center of the action, where drugs were available, and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”

“That was a long time ago and people can change,” she generously offered. “Through his own strength and the many second chances he was given by people who felt sorry for the boy who lost his father, Bobby was able to pull himself out of illness and disease. I admire the discipline that took, and the continuing commitment it requires. But siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse, suffered addiction, illness, and death, while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent lie and cheat his way through life.”

“Even before he fills this job, his constant denigration of our health care system and the conspiratorial half truths he’s told about vaccines, including in connection with Samoa’s deadly 2019 outbreak of measles, have caused lives,” she noted.

“And now we know that Bobby’s crusade against vaccination has benefited him in other ways, too,” she added. “His ethics report makes clear that he will keep his financial stake in a lawsuit against an HPV vaccine. In other words, Bobby is willing to profit, can enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer, and has already been safely administered to millions of boys and girls. During my time in Australia, I worked on the quad cancer initiative, and I learned that cervical cancer is among the top three forms of cancer among women in a majority of countries. Tragically, every year, more than 200,000 children lose their mothers. They are orphaned due to a lack of vaccines and screening.”

“Those are the real world consequences of Bobby’s irresponsible beliefs. We are a close family and none of that is easy to say.”

Watch Kennedy’s video, posted by her son, John Bouvier “Jack” Kennedy Schlossberg, below or at this link.

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy’s statement to the US Senate on RFKJr’s nomination for HHS Secretary

This is a reading of a letter she just sent to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

I’m so proud of my courageous mother, who’s lived a life of dignity,… pic.twitter.com/feysNA0Wwp

— Jack Schlossberg (@JBKSchlossberg) January 28, 2025

READ MORE: Trump Team Pushing ‘Utter Propaganda’ on Deportations to Create ‘Climate of Fear’: Experts

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

President Donald Trump’s massive freeze on what appears to be trillions of dollars of federal aid is being challenged as possibly illegal, as state and federal lawmakers, governors, and the heads of nonprofit agencies that rely on federal funds, are trying to assess the scope and ramifications of the unprecedented move.

The freeze, which was not publicly communicated by the Trump administration, but rather discovered by independent journalist Marisa Kabas, was dictated via a memo from the interim director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Matthew Vaeth in his memo to all executive branch agency heads declared the freeze was to give them time to root out “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies,” “DEI,” and “woke gender ideology.”

While the freeze was directed to begin at 5:00 PM Tuesday, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) announced late Tuesday morning, “Multiple states locked out of Medicaid portal. This is a Trump shutdown, except this time it’s unlawful.”

Topher Spiro, a former Biden White House OMB official with decades of government policy experience, suggests the real blame for Vaeth’s memo should be placed on President Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Russell (Russ) Vought.

READ MORE: Trump DOJ Fires ‘More Than a Dozen’ Prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Team

Vought is Trump’s last OMB director from his first administration, and is seen as an “architect” of the Heritage Foundation’s extremist Project 2025.

“As a former associate director at OMB, I have some thoughts about this OMB memo,” writes Spiro.

“I have no doubt that OMB lawyers would believe this is illegal,” he declares. “I know Matt Vaeth. This memo reads like a hostage note written directly by Russ Vought, who is not confirmed.”

“This is cruel,” he continues. “A sampling of funding potentially affected in health care: -all opioid prevention funding -all mental health funding -funding for community health centers -suicide prevention, and the suicide lifeline -HIV/AIDS treatment -grants to states to address avian flu,” Spiro explains.

“In sum, Russ Vought is illegally carrying out his ideological agenda with greatest harm to the most vulnerable–including many in the working class and rural communities who voted for Trump. A massive fraud,” he concludes.

Others are also pointing to Vought — who had an extraordinarily contentious Senate confirmation hearing  earlier this month — as the architect of the massive Trump funding freeze.

READ MORE: Trump Team Pushing ‘Utter Propaganda’ on Deportations to Create ‘Climate of Fear’: Experts

“Russ Vought devised these illegal holds on funding for disaster relief, medical research, student aid, child care, and nutrition, as well as purges of the federal workforce. If confirmed as OMB Director he’ll keep this up for four years. The Senate should reject his nomination,” declared U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, (D-VA).

Senate Democrats appear to be in agreement, and have called for Vought’s confirmation to be held up until the funding freeze is lifted.

“Senate Democrats said the move is ‘a brazen and illegal’ attempt to halt federal funding that Congress passed into law and they will try to stop it,” The Washington Times reports. “Senate Democrats want to pause Russell Vought’s nomination for Office of Management and Budget director until the Trump administration resumes distribution of federal financial assistance, but Republicans don’t plan to oblige.”

In a November op-ed at The Hill, author, legal analyst, and former federal prosecutor James Zirin called Vought, “just the man to implement Trump’s autocratic vision.”

READ MORE: ‘We Are the Opposite of Nazis’: Colombia’s President Slams Trump Deportation Policies

Image: “President Donald J. Trump listens to the Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russ Vought delivers remarks prior to President Trump signing Executive Orders on Transparency in Federal Guidance and Enforcement Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)”