OMB Director Russell Vought (heart, behind President Trump) is the lead defendant in a lawsuit introduced by 4 state attorneys basic 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.
Instantly, attorneys basic within the affected states filed their lawsuit late Wednesday in a federal district courtroom in Illinois asking for the non permanent restraining order.
And the following day, a federal decide blocked the Trump administration’s motion with a non permanent restraining order launched late Thursday.
In an opinion accompanying the order, U.S. District Choose Manish S. Shah wrote that regardless that the said purpose for the cancellations was that the grants didn’t align with the priorities of the CDC, “current statements plausibly recommend that the explanation for the path [to cut the funds] is hostility to what the federal authorities calls ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ or ‘sanctuary cities.'”
The entire course of aligns with the best way the federal authorities has been working since President Trump’s second inauguration final yr. 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 help in Congress and was signed into legislation by Trump himself simply weeks in the past.
“Integral to retaining 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 capabilities in public well being to maintain folks secure and wholesome have now been canceled,” says Dr. Sarah Rudman, director 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 must do by legislation and are completely integral to retaining folks secure.”
For instance, she says, one of many grants pays for a staffer of their public well being laboratory. “That workers member is vital 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 ailments as we speak, however our capability to do it as nicely and as quick as we at all times 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 every part from HIV prevention in Chicago, firearm harm discount in Denver, and entry to inexpensive, wholesome meals in Minneapolis.
Rudman says the sensation is “whiplash” when federal grants might be canceled immediately with little clarification, though she says she’s relieved the decide stepped in rapidly to briefly block the cuts.
“It is completely crucial that we’ve got stability and predictability in our funding,” she says. “We have to plan forward and know we’ve got the assets to take action.”
New funds, similar sudden cuts
These newest grant cancellations observe a sample that started final yr when the second Trump administration started. Typically these choices have been reversed after public strain or efficiently overturned in courtroom.
On this case, the attorneys basic 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 Finances (‘OMB’) then spent the final two weeks of January growing successful record of funds for potential focusing on in disfavored States,” reads the criticism. “In early February, OMB issued a directive (the ‘Focusing 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 terms of public well being division funding, “all the cancellations that we’ve got seen over the previous 12 months or so do appear to have been directed from the Workplace of Administration and Finances,” says Adriane Casalotti, chief 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 had 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 yr. The entire grants awarded since Trump’s inauguration have been authorised by his personal administration’s political appointees, Casalotti notes.
A few of the grants canceled this week had been even included in President Trump’s 2026 funds and within the bipartisan HHS funds that was handed into legislation this month and signed by Trump on Feb. 3.
“Once we have a look at the general public well being infrastructure grants which were canceled in these states, Congress really gave it a $10 million enhance of their closing legislation — it was supported within the Home [budget] invoice and the Senate invoice,” says Casalotti. “These funds have a ton of help throughout the board.”
Three days’ discover
There was one thing totally 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 [budget] invoice of notification, to sort of cope with the Congress’s energy of the purse,” she says. Due to that provision, the appropriations committees within the Home and Senate acquired an emailed record of the CDC grant cancellations earlier this week. The emails, obtained by NPR, embrace an extended record of grant numbers, and the explanation for every reads: “Inconsistent with Company Priorities” with a hyperlink to an “About CDC” webpage.
“Look, when you have notification, you’ve got acquired public outrage,” DeLauro says. She credit the three days of discover with giving focused states time to file a lawsuit so rapidly. “You realize, ailments 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 Basic Robert Bonta predicted that the non permanent restraining order can be adopted by a victory for the states within the case.
“I’ve stated it earlier than, and I will 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 legislation,” Bonta stated in a press launch.
