Federal judge bars Trump administration from using obscure clause to make huge funding cuts

A federal judge in Boston on Friday July 18th 2026 ruled the Trump administration cannot use an obscure clause relating to agency priorities to make billions of dollars in funding cuts. Twenty-three states had a filed a lawsuit in 2025 accusing the Trump administration of using the clause to make cuts to everything from crime prevention to food security to scientific research. The states were concerned that it would be used to cancel current and future grants.

United States District Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, granted a summary judgment preventing the administration from relying on the clause to make cuts and denied a motion by the government to dismiss the case. Talwani ruled that defendants’ interpretation of the Termination Clause is not clearly supported by the text of the provision, runs counter to the regulatory scheme, receives no support in the rulemaking history, and would violate the Spending Clause’s requirement that conditions be imposed unambiguously. The lawsuit argued that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) promulgated the use of the clause in question to justify what it described as a nationwide “slash-and-burn campaign”.

The clause, which was first introduced in 2020 and revised in 2024, says federal agents can terminate a grant if the award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities. The states argued that the language, put in place during the Biden administration, was for the first time being used to terminate grants. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport contested that instead of working with the people to keep the public safe and lower costs for hardworking New Jerseyans, the Trump Administration has recklessly and illegally gutted federal funding for public safety, disaster preparedness, scientific research, clean water, and more.

Friday’s decision is an important win for all New Jerseyans and confirms that the Trump Administration defied the law when it embarked on its campaign to gut critical federal funding to the states.

President Donald Trump and his allies cannot hold critical programs hostage to their personal whims and political ideologies, destabilizing the country by yanking essential federal funding that was already awarded to the states. Calling the case an “extraordinarily unusual lawsuit”, lawyers for federal government argued it should be dismissed because some of those grants have already been terminated and plaintiffs’ argument about the impact to future grants was far too speculative. They also accused the states of “raising blanket, undifferentiated objections” to the termination of thousands of grants without seeking relief that would “restore a single grant”.

That mismatch between the allegedly unlawful agency ‘decision’ on one hand, and the amorphous relief requested in this suit, on the other, creates a set of jurisdiction and justiciability defects that doom this lawsuit at the threshold. A spokesperson for the OMB did not respond to a request for comment. In 2024, the second presidential debate for Trump went up against Joe Biden in June.

Biden’s devastating performance triggered an upheaval within the Democratic party that would ultimately push him to step down and position Kamala Harris to head the ticket, an outcome Trump both took credit for and complained about at his rallies. Trump and Harris went into the event virtually tied in the polls with just weeks to convince a small but mighty minority of unsure voters on how to cast their ballot. After weeks of arguments over the format and rules, the debate aired live on ABC from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a key swing state, with no audience in attendance and each candidate’s microphone muted while their opponent spoke.

With just 55 days until votes were tallied, Harris strived to highlight that she had a plan, and clearly responded to criticisms that she had not shared enough details with voters about her platform and priorities.

With focused rhetoric on planning for the future, building the middle class, and reframing her record on everything from immigration to climate, Harris was able to show voters how she hoped to lead. Analysts, meanwhile, were watching Trump’s demeanor and clarity. Trump repeated frequent rhetoric from his rallies but shared little about how he would address key problems Americans were facing.

Beyond their differences in policy positions, the candidates also displayed diverging visions of the country. Trump promised his base to restore what he saw as the glory of the past, and Harris heralded the hope of a brighter future. In December 2023, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that Trump cannot run for president in 2024 in the state, citing a constitutional insurrection clause.

The court ruled 4-3 that Trump was not an eligible candidate because he had engaged in an insurrection over the United States Capitol riot in 2020. It did not stop Trump running in the other states and his campaign appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The ruling only mentioned the state’s primary election on March 5th 2024, when Republican voters would choose their preferred candidate for president.

But it could affect the general election in Colorado November 2024.

It was the first ever use of Section 3 of the United States Constitution’s 14th Amendment to disqualify a presidential candidate. The decision only applied in Colorado. Similar attempts to kick Trump off the ballot in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Michigan had failed. The justices did not reach these conclusions lightly. The justices were mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions, mindful of their solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandated they reach.

The decision reversed an earlier one from a Colorado judge, who ruled that the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban did not apply to presidents because the section did not explicitly mention them. That same lower court judge also found that Trump had participated in an insurrection in the United States Capitol riot. Trump’s supporters stormed Congress on January 6th 2021, while lawmakers were certifying Biden’s election victory.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision did not go into effect until January 4th 2024. That was the eve of the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots. The Trump campaign called the ruling completely flawed and lambasted the justices, who were all appointed by Democratic governors. The Trump campaign stated Democrat Party leaders were in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead he amassed in the polls.

The Trump campaign added that its legal team would file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, where conservatives held a 6 to 3 majority.

The decision would help Democrats by supporting their argument that the United States Capitol riot was an attempted insurrection. The decision would also aid Democrats in showcasing the stark differences between Trump and Biden. Republican lawmakers condemned the decision, including House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, who called it a thinly veiled partisan attack.

Republicans stated that regardless of political affiliation, every citizen registered to vote should not be denied the right to support Trump. On the campaign trail Trump’s Republican primary rivals also assailed the ruling, with Vivek Ramaswamy pledging to withdraw his name from the ballot if his candidacy was not reinstated. The Colorado Republican Party also responded, saying it would withdraw from the state’s primary process if the ruling was allowed to stand.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the group that brought the case, welcomed the ruling. The ruling was not only historic and justified, but was necessary to protect the future of democracy in the country. The 14th Amendment was ratified after the American Civil War. Section 3 was intended to block secessionists from returning to previous government roles once southern states re-joined the Union.

Section 3 was used against Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his vice-president Alexander Stephens, both of whom had served in Congress.

Section 3 had seldom been invoked since. But if courts in more competitive states followed suit, Trump’s White House bid could face serious problems. During a one-week trial in Colorado, Trump’s lawyers argued he should not be disqualified because he did not bear responsibility for the United States Capitol riot. But in its ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court majority disagreed.

The Colorado Supreme Court said Trump’s messages before the riot were a call to his supporters to fight and his supporters responded to that call. Carlos Samour, one of three justices who dissented, argued the government could not deprive someone of the right to hold public office without due process of law. Even if the Colorado Supreme Court convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past, Samour believed there must be procedural due process before the Colorado Supreme Court could declare that individual disqualified from holding public office.

Trump was facing four criminal cases, including one federal and one state case in Georgia related to his alleged election subversion efforts. In October 2020, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, had tested positive for covid, dealing another blow to his reelection effort on a day that saw the president and the head of the Republican National Committee (RNC) report contracting the disease as well. Stepien received his diagnosis and was experiencing mild flu-like symptoms.

Deputy Campaign Manager Justin Clark oversaw the Trump team’s Arlington, Virginia headquarters while Stepien worked remotely and maintained control of the campaign.

Stepien’s disclosure meant two heads of Trump’s political apparatus had contracted covid. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced that she, too, was infected. The news came at a perilous moment for Trump, with polls showing him trailing Biden in an array of battleground states and dwindling days to make up the lost ground. After White House adviser Hope Hicks tested positive, senior members of the reelection campaign underwent tests of their own.

Each of the others, including Clark, tested negative. With Trump hospitalized at Walter Reed Hospital, his advisers reassessed their plans for the final month of the campaign. Trump campaign cancelled plans for a rally in Florida, and postponed rallies in Wisconsin and a West Coast swing through Nevada and Arizona. While Trump relied on in-person rallies amid the pandemic, his inner circle had begun looking into staging virtual events.

Trump campaign also planned to rely on a bevy of surrogates for in-person events, including Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s sons and daughter-in-law, Donald, Eric, and Lara. Trump’s diagnosis thrusted his management of covid to the forefront of the campaign, which he had strenuously tried to avoid, and it has rippled through his political operation. Stepien sent a memo to staff saying that anyone who had exposure to someone testing positive should immediately begin self-quarantine.

Stepien was slated to hold separate conference calls with campaign staff and grass-roots leaders.

Pence was expected to participate in one of the calls. Stepien was named campaign manager in July 2020, replacing Brad Parscale. With Trump’s poll numbers cratering, Stepien raced to impose discipline on the massive organization, pushing staffers to up their work hours and impressing upon them the idea that every day mattered. Stepien restructured the organization, undertook a budgetary review, and increased outreach to campaign officials located in battleground states.

Prior to joining the campaign in late 2018, Stepien served as White House political director, forging a close relationship with Trump and a fellow New Jerseyan, Jared Kushner. Stepien oversaw field efforts for Donald Trump’s 2016 general election campaign. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and a former senior White House official, separately announced that she had contracted covid too.

Trump’s public praise for an experimental covid antibody treatment was putting new pressure on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to quickly give emergency clearance to a drug he had touted as a miracle. Doctors thought the drugs showed promise as a potential treatment of covid, though Trump created confusion by quickly elevating them to a cure. Trump said that he felt better immediately after taking the drugs.

But by placing himself in the middle of the drug evaluation process, Trump was once again igniting concerns about politics encroaching on science at a crucial time.

The pressure threatened to undermine confidence in government regulators and turned the science of drug evaluation into yet another political dispute, confusing Americans and sowing distrust about helpful therapies. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that the agency should grant emergency use authorization (EUA) to antibody treatments such as the one Trump took and that people should not be so quick to attack such a promising therapy. The safety bar for antibody treatments was lower than it was for vaccines because the science for antibodies was better understood.

Two companies had filed for EUA for antibody drugs, Regeneron and Eli Lilly. The treatment from Eli Lilly consisted of a single monoclonal antibody, while the treatment from Regeneron consisted of a cocktail of antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies were lab-generated versions of one of the human body’s main defenses against pathogens. Doctors and health experts thought antibody drugs could be a bridge to a covid vaccine but cautioned that the results were preliminary and that longer studies were needed.

Regeneron issued a press release touting its preliminary results but had not publicly released any data. According to Regeneron, a high dose of its drug led to reduced levels of the virus in non-hospitalized patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Eli Lilly’s submission was based on studies showing that its antibody treatment reduces hospitalizations and serious complications.

There was no evidence Regeneron’s antibody therapy was responsible for Trump’s apparent recovery.

But in the days since his covid diagnosis, Trump seized on the promise of the treatments and claimed they would be broadly available to the public for free. Yet the companies themselves said there would be a limited number of doses available. Regeneron would have just 300,000 doses available by the end of 2020, which was enough to last one week, given the rate of infections.

Eli Lilly said it would be similarly limited, with 1 million doses. Federal officials were confident that if EUA was granted, the administration would be able to purchase enough of the drugs to treat vulnerable populations. Trump’s fixation on the antibody treatment was reminiscent of his promotion of convalescent plasma and hydroxychloroquine. In both cases, the FDA issued an EUA for unproven therapies after coming under apparent pressure from the White House.

Even though antibody drugs might be effective, Trump’s effusive praise and pressure campaign run the risk of leading the public to think the FDA’s decision was driven by politics, not science. Medical groups, led by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), urged the FDA not to rush its decision, and to make sure any authorization or approval was based on established scientific standards. Promising results among small numbers of patients to approaches that included antibody therapies were not a substitute for the rigorous scientific review that was essential to ensuring the safety and effectiveness of medicines.

Relying on such limited data could put patients at risk of adverse events, and an EUA could reduce the ability to conduct the clinical trials that were needed to assess the safety and efficacy of antibody treatments. Trump abruptly pulled the plug on negotiations for another covid spending package, all but ending the prospect of additional federal relief before Election Day in November 2020.