Rachel Maddow points out how Senate Democrats are using their power in the minority to boycott Trump's OMB pick Russell Vought's committee vote.

Until a federal judge stops it, the “pause” in grants and loans will be really bad news for poor people in need of Medicaid or food stamps.

President Donald Trump’s administration issued a memo Monday ordering widespread federal assistance to be temporarily paused, as Trump and his allies have argued he can block government funds that Congress has already authorized, despite a federal law forbidding it.

The order to pause nearly all U.S. financial assistance for executive branch review poses a constitutional test of the president’s impoundment powers.

Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought arrives to testify during a hearing of the House Budget Committee about President Trump's budget for Fiscal Year 2021, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump’s early, extraordinary steps pose a direct challenge to a fundamental underpinning of the Constitution: the power of the purse.

President Trump signed an executive order calling for a federal "funding freeze," and Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) subsequently issued

An internal OMB document shows that it is official administration policy to block funding to provoke a constitutional challenge.

The nominee’s combative disdain for Congress’s power of the purse makes him unqualified.

Buried within one of the dozens of executive orders that President Donald Trump issued in his first days in office is a section titled “Terminating the Green New Deal.” As presidential directives go, this one initially seemed like a joke. The Green New Deal exists mostly in the dreams of climate activists; it has never been fully enacted into law.

For example, Trump cannot on his own repeal legislation like the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act. But OMB could effectively cut off money for the programs, jobs and contractors necessary to