Nightmare on K Street

Donald Trump , Mike Johnson
"The continuing resolution is keeping the government afloat right now, and it expires on March 14. Trump has every opportunity available to him to decide before that, with his Republican Senate and House, what programs get funded and what programs don’t," Shanti Stanton tells Puck's Tara Palmeri. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Tara Palmeri
January 31, 2025

Donald Trump’s supposedly tightly-run ship capsized Tuesday when the White House sort of paralyzed the government by mistake, with a poorly executed directive that called for freezing all $3 trillion of federal grants and loans that might not reflect Trump’s views. Fingers are now pointing at a little-known lawyer in the Office of Management and Budget, Mark Paoletta, who, The New York Times reports, didn’t clear the directive with Staff Secretary Will Scharf or Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—the guys who would ostensibly need to sign off on a change of this magnitude. Even Trump seemed annoyed by the sloppy rollout and walkback.