The Trump White House is treating spending laws more like suggestions as it tries to mute the effects of the government shutdown and attack programs it considers to be Democratic priorities as it digs in for a long shutdown.
Moving money. Money earmarked by Congress for research at the Pentagon will instead be used to pay troops.
The Coast Guard, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, will be paid with money borrowed from the tax and spending legislation Republicans passed into law. She did not elaborate on exactly how the cash would be rerouted.
Reinterpreting a law Trump signed. Furloughed workers may not get paid for their time during the shutdown, despite a law that explicitly says furloughed workers must be paid. President Donald Trump and Russell Vought, his director of the Office of Management and Budget, should know about that law, the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, since it was Trump who signed it into law in the midst of the shutdown he oversaw during his first term.
Diverting tariff revenue. Rerouting tariff revenue could extend the food assistance that pregnant women, new moms and young children receive, according to the Trump administration. This specific tariff revenue, left over from last year, already funds child nutrition programs.
Paying troops is not controversial
At the White House on Tuesday, Trump told reporters he had even talked to a wealthy person who offered to fill any gaps and make sure members of the military get paid. Trump said he won’t need the handout since he’s located unallocated money at the Pentagon.
Paying troops is not something that is going to get complaints from Democrats even if it is legally questionable to move funds Congress appropriated for something else.
“If the Democrats want to go to court and challenge troops being paid, bring it, OK?” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday.
Shutdown layoffs challenged
Lawmakers from the Virginia and Maryland suburbs around the nation’s capital did not focus on efforts to pay troops during an otherwise angry rally with furloughed federal workers in Washington on Tuesday.
Instead, they criticized Vought and Trump for carrying through on threats to lay off workers during the shutdown, something Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said was meant to “terrorize” the federal workforce.
Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday the layoffs were required to keep programs like WIC functioning, even though there is nothing in federal law to tie worker paychecks to food assistance. In fact, the law Trump signed specifically says workers must be paid when appropriations are ultimately approved. Read a more in-depth dissection of Vance’s claim here.
While approximately 750,000 federal workers have been furloughed, fewer — more than 3,500 — have been laid off. Unions representing federal workers have challenged the shutdown layoffs in federal court.
Spending laws are laws
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said spending laws can’t just be ignored by the White House.
“They shouldn’t start impounding, redirecting, rechanneling money in order to cover up for their own negligence,” he said.
Trump and Republicans argue that Democrats are responsible for the shutdown for demanding an extension of subsidies to help individuals buy health insurance on Obamacare exchanges.
‘Batten down the hatches’
The stated White House strategy is to “batten down the hatches” and continue to blame Democrats.
“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” is how Vought’s OMB put it in a post from the agency’s official account on X.
Trump sees the nation’s money as flowing through him
The current situation is a window into how Trump sees federal money: not as controlled by Congress, which is designed by the Constitution to have power over the national purse.
At the White House on Tuesday, Trump appeared alongside Argentina’s President Javier Milei, a political ally who Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is propping up ahead of midterm elections this month with the promise of a $20 billion bailout for its troubled currency.
The move inadvertently helped China, which has stopped buying soybeans from the US — angering US farmers — and is now buying them from Argentina, which has waived its excise tax.
Money for Argentina, not for New York
Trump said he hopes the bailout helps Milei’s party in the country’s next election. If it doesn’t, the White House will rethink the bailout, Bessent said.
Trump then pivoted from Argentina’s election to the looming New York City mayoral election. Vought has already sought to cancel federal dollars meant to go to subway projects in New York. If New Yorkers elect the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate and frontrunner, whom Trump incorrectly calls a communist, Trump said he will pull back more federal funding from the city.
“I’m not going to send a lot of money to New York. I don’t have to. You know, the money comes all through the White House,” he said. “And if they’re going to be sending us stupid policies, I mean, communist policies, which has proven for thousands of years doesn’t work. We don’t have to prove it again.”
Challenging impoundment laws that forbid the White House from ignoring Congress’s spending authority is a stated goal of Trump’s second term.
Trump made clear he sees federal money as his authority.
“The funding for New York and for every place comes through the White House. And I’m very generous … But I wouldn’t be generous to a communist,” Trump said.
The important part of that quote is that Trump sees the money as his to be generous with.