White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt spent much of her first briefing insisting that the new memo freezing potentially billions of dollars in federal aid was limited in scope, without clarifying what exactly that scope is.
“Again, direct assistance will not be impacted,” Leavitt said after being asked repeatedly about the action’s potential impacts, the topic that dominated the briefing. “I’ve been asked and answered about this memo, there are many other topics of the day.”
The surprise memo from the Office of Management and Budget late Monday night ordered a broad “temporary pause” on federal assistance, with carve-outs for Medicare, Social Security and aid “provided directly to individuals.” The action’s purpose, OMB said, was to halt aid “including, but not limited to, foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, [diversity, equity and inclusion], woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.”