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Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
What to know about claims Palantir is creating a national database of US citizens
In late May 2025, a New York Times article detailed a supposed combined effort between the U.S. federal government and the data analysis software company Palantir to centralize data on American citizens. Palantir rebutted the allegations in a statement on X and in a blog post, arguing that the New York Times story overstated Palantir's ties to the Trump administration — particularly to the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative — and that the company does not collect data to "unlawfully surveil" Americans. Using USASpending, the publicly available database for federal government spending, Snopes found that Palantir received between $228 million and $542 million in government contracts per year between 2020 and 2024, mostly with the Defense Department. While we were not able to confirm the details of all of these contracts, some departments and agencies reportedly use Palantir's Foundry product for data management. Comments from former DOGE figurehead Elon Musk implied that one of the initiative's goals is to compile and centralize data on American citizens. DOGE could easily use Palantir's powerful data tools to construct such a database or create connections between existing government data. A March executive order and two June Supreme Court rulings would also help facilitate that work. We found no evidence that Palantir itself was compiling any master database, as social media posts claimed. On May 30, 2025, The New York Times published an article titled "Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans," detailing a supposed combined effort between the U.S. federal government and the data software company Palantir to centralize data on American citizens. Data privacy advocates did not take the news well, calling it "dystopian" and a massive invasion of privacy. Four days later, Palantir posted a statement to X responding to the article, calling the reporting "blatantly untrue" because "Palantir never collects data to unlawfully surveil Americans, and our Foundry platform employs granular security protections." On June 9, 2025, the company followed up with a long blog post on X titled "Correcting the Record: Responses to the May 30, 2025 New York Times Article on Palantir," which aimed to fact-check the article. (Snopes began researching this story before this blog post was released. We reached out to Palantir for comment but have not yet heard back; if we do, we will update this story.) Since the May 30 article came out, a claim based on the reporting began circulating on social media — namely, that U.S. President Donald Trump or someone in his administration contracted Palantir to create a master database of all U.S. citizens. In this article, we aim to check the accuracy of both the New York Times article and Palantir's response to it. In doing so, we will also address the claim spreading on social media. When two sides of a story publish conflicting accounts, the truth of the matter generally lies somewhere in the middle. Snopes' research suggested that was the case in this situation. Both the New York Times' reporting and Palantir's response omitted details relevant to the story at hand. Snopes found the social media claim that Palantir was creating a master database of all U.S. citizens was an exaggerated version of the New York Times article's headline, which oversimplified the situation. Here's what we found: Palantir is a company that lies at the crossroads of Silicon Valley and the Pentagon. Founded by Peter Thiel, Alexander Karp, Stephen Cohen and Joe Lonsdale in 2003, the company's website describes its mission as making "products for human-driven analysis of real-world data." The company's founders and data tools are very Silicon Valley — Thiel co-founded PayPal alongside Elon Musk (until recently the figurehead of the Trump administration's cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency initiative) and was also the first big investor in Facebook, for instance. But Palantir's customer base is based around Washington, D.C. Public spending data showed the company has held government contracts since at least July 2008. The left-leaning newsroom More Perfect Union quoted Palantir CTO Shyam Shankar in 2021 saying that the company's goal was to become "the U.S. government's central operating system." Different versions of the claim on social media listed the Palantir products Gotham and Foundry as the main ways the company was supposedly consolidating government data. Palantir's website describes Foundry as "Ontology-Powered Operating System for the Modern Enterprise" (it's an internet-based data management system) and Gotham as an "Operating system for global decision making." (It's designed for the military.) Based on those product descriptions, Foundry is the product of interest. Palantir's response to the New York Times story acknowledged the company's extensive work with the U.S. federal government. However, it also aimed to distance itself from one of the most talked-about groups in the early months of Trump's second term — the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which the tech billionaire Elon Musk spearheaded until late May. The New York Times and WIRED previously reported that several DOGE staffers worked at Palantir before joining the initiative. More Perfect Union found other former Palantir employees working within Trump's administration as "foreign policy advisers" and "high-level technology appointees." On June 5, 2025, WIRED published an article claiming that Palantir's head of strategic engagement, Eliano Younes, retaliated in reaction to WIRED's reporting on connections to the Trump administration by threatening to call the police on a WIRED reporter watching software demonstrations at Palantir's booth at the AI+ expo, a free and public event open to journalists. In its response to the New York Times article, Palantir claimed that the New York Times and WIRED's reporting was misleading because "Palantir does not control where its employees go after leaving the company" and that attempts to draw connections between Palantir and the Trump administration "lend credence to a conspiracy to surveil the American public." It is true that former employees of Palantir joining an administration isn't a sign of conspiracy. However, it is also true that at least one co-founder and co-owner of Palantir, Peter Thiel, is a man who has a business history with Musk and who helped bankroll the campaigns of both Vice President JD Vance and Trump. The New York Times story found that since Trump took office, Palantir has received over $113 million in government contracts. Using USASpending, the publicly available database for federal government spending, Snopes found that Palantir received between $228 million and $542 million in government contracts per year between 2020 and 2024, mostly with the Defense Department. Palantir's response noted that many of those contracts dated back to previous administrations. In 2025, however, the company earned its first billion-dollar contract with the Defense Department for a military surveillance system. In short, Palantir does have connections with the Trump administration, although it has attempted to downplay them. The federal government has a lot of data. An April 2025 story from the New York Times counted 314 different pieces of information various U.S. government agencies have on file for each citizen, and suggested the total was likely even higher. On March 20, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos." The May 30 New York Times story marked this executive order as a starting point for the consolidation of information. But Palantir's response to this idea left out the most important stipulation in the order: A close reading of the Executive Order is merited to better assess the intent and to observe the Order's language that specifically directs any data sharing efforts to align with existing legal authorities and procedural standards, and for the express purpose of addressing inefficiencies in government programs. Inefficiency, waste, fraud, and abuse reduction initiatives have been nonpartisan and regular focuses of multiple administrations. The statement draws on a vague rhetorical maneuver ("raising questions") to extrapolate from a common sense government initiative — that of IT modernization — to the presumption of nefarious and dystopian intent. Describing the executive order as solely an "IT modernization" initiative is highly misleading, even when acknowledging the fact that information technology systems are listed in the executive order. The executive order's "purpose" section reads: Removing unnecessary barriers to Federal employees accessing Government data and promoting inter‑agency data sharing are important steps toward eliminating bureaucratic duplication and inefficiency while enhancing the Government's ability to detect overpayments and fraud. It instructed all federal agencies to ensure that "Federal officials designated by the President or Agency Heads (or their designees) [had] full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, data, software systems, and information technology systems." In simple words, the executive order stated that if the president, or anyone authorized by the president (say, a member of an initiative explicitly created by that president to reduce government waste and fraud), asked for unclassified data, agencies had to provide it. It is true, as Palantir's response noted, that programs targeting "inefficiency, waste, fraud and abuse" have been non-partisan, and that the executive order includes wording about the legal framework. It is also true that the executive order does not explicitly mention DOGE by name. But the executive order, without naming DOGE, still gives the agency enormous power. DOGE's employees are federal employees. According to an interview then-DOGE figurehead Musk gave Fox News, the government is defrauded when "the computer systems don't talk to each other." Using Musk's own rationale, DOGE would therefore need to make the computer systems talk to each other (read: allow one computer system to access data from another system) in order to combat fraud. The agency's strategy of "move fast and break things" seems to ignore whether the actions it takes are legal, based on the dozens of lawsuits filed against the initiative. (DOGE supporters, of course, can claim those lawsuits are without merit, but that argument is outside the scope of this story.) Indeed, DOGE has attempted to interlink the various government systems, according to previous reporting from WIRED and CNN. Palantir's response to the New York Times story claimed those WIRED and CNN reports were also misleading because they helped "propagate similar inaccuracies about Palantir's actual work with U.S. government federal agencies," noting that the company has "no contracts with DOGE." So, let's discuss that question. USASpending listed every federal contract with Palantir dating back to 2008 as follows. The following five departments or agencies all had contracts with Palantir totaling over $100 million: Department of Defense Department of Health and Human Services Department of Homeland Security Department of Justice Department of Treasury Five federal entities had contracts totaling between $10 and $100 million: Department of Veterans Affairs Department of Energy Securities and Exchange Commission Department of Transportation Department of Agriculture Finally, the following five had contracts totaling less than $10 million: Department of Commerce ($4.5 million) Department of State (just under $2 million) General Services Administration ($750,000) Department of Labor ($80,000) Department of the Interior ($5,000) Snopes reached out to all of those departments for comment. We received a response from the Department of Defense directing us to publicly available information on Palantir contracts we had already found. We also received a response from a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official saying, "Like other law enforcement agencies, ICE employs various forms of technology while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests." The May 30 New York Times story claiming that Palantir had been tapped to consolidate data named the three biggest departments — Defense (DOD), Health and Human Services (HHS) and Homeland Security (DHS), as having Palantir contracts. (It did not specify when those contracts started.) That story also claimed that new contracts with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) might be coming soon. Palantir confirmed its work with the IRS in its response — since 2018, it has helped support "the agency's criminal investigative workflows." A June story from the New York Times clarified that the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, all within HHS, use Palantir Foundry for data management. So, no — Palantir does not have a direct contract with DOGE. However, the existence of a direct contract does not change the facts of WIRED's reporting about DOGE employees using Palantir's technology to centralize and connect government data sources. The April 2025 reporting from WIRED and CNN claimed that DOGE was combining Homeland Security databases with information from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and voting records to create "a master database for immigration enforcement." That WIRED story also noted that DOGE leaders at the IRS were attempting to create a system that would allow "privileged users to view all agency data from a central access point" using Foundry. The article stated that the Treasury Department denied having a contract for this work, but that "IRS engineers were invited to another three-day 'training and building session' on the project located at Palantir's Georgetown offices in Washington, DC." Several government IT personnel told WIRED that it would be "easy to connect the IRS's Palantir system with the ICE system at DHS." In total, Palantir software certainly isn't used throughout the federal government, as noted in the company's response to the New York Times story. However, Foundry is reportedly used in the department that maintains databases on health, and if DOGE's work at the IRS is fully implemented, it could also be used to connect tax data and immigration data. As for social security, in June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two unsigned rulings allowing DOGE to access Social Security data and shield records from a watchdog organization. Whether or not Social Security data has been moved to Foundry is unknown. Palantir's initial response claimed the company never "collects data to unlawfully surveil Americans." The New York Times article never accused Palantir of breaking the law. Social media users replied to the company's statement pointing out that the word "unlawfully" could be doing a lot of heavy lifting, implying that Palantir was collecting data to surveil Americans legally. Based on our research, this claim isn't true, because Palantir isn't the one collecting or storing the data — rather, the U.S. government is doing so. Furthermore, Palantir isn't the one attempting to compile or centralize that data — that's DOGE. Palantir's response described their role as follows: "Our business is to provide our customers with the software capabilities to use their data effectively and in accordance to their legitimate mandates." Assuming this is true, Palantir itself is not building any master database, as social media posts claimed. However, its powerful data tools could easily be used to construct such a database. The company acknowledged as much in its response: As a company that focuses on building privacy and civil liberties protective technologies, as well as one that fosters a culture of open dialogue on controversial topics impacting our business, we consider many types of risks associated with our customer engagements and products in order to help avoid or mitigate concerns. There likely may still be residual risks of misuse for any product or tool, technical or otherwise. But our efforts to discuss, understand, and address such risks are one of the reasons that some of the most critical institutions in the world spanning public, private, and non-profit sectors trust Palantir and our products. Furthermore, there is some evidence — based on Trump's executive order, statements from Elon Musk speaking about data consolidation, previous reporting from WIRED and CNN on how Homeland Security and ICE has created an immigrant database from multiple data sources and a recent decision by the Supreme Court that allows DOGE to access SSA data — that the administration is undertaking such an initiative. Palantir's Foundry, a tool to access government data, would only be a part of such an initiative. Paraphrasing what a source within the SSA told WIRED in April, creating a network of computers and databases that DOGE can connect to is "more feasible and quicker than putting all the data in a single place, which is probably what they really want." - YouTube. Accessed 9 June 2025. ---. Accessed 9 June 2025. "About Palantir." Palantir, Accessed 9 June 2025. "Alexander Karp." Forbes, Accessed 9 June 2025. Alexander, Sophie, and Jamie Tarabay. "Peter Thiel's Deep Ties to Trump's Top Ranks." Bloomberg, 7 Mar. 2025, Alvarez, Alayna. "Palantir's Partnership with ICE Deepens." Axios Denver, 1 May 2025, Badger, Emily, and Sheera Frenkel. "Trump Wants to Merge Government Data. Here Are 314 Things It Might Know About You." The New York Times, 9 Apr. 2025, Bajwa, Arsheeya. "Palantir Defies Tech Gloom as Trump Momentum Powers Stellar Share Gains." Reuters, 3 June 2025. Elliott, Vittoria. "The Recruitment Effort That Helped Build Elon Musk's DOGE Army." Wired. Accessed 9 June 2025. Enabling Granular Access Control for All Data Connection Types. Accessed 10 June 2025. Frenkel, Sheera, and Aaron Krolik. "Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans." The New York Times, 30 May 2025, Haskins, Caroline. "Palantir Is Going on Defense." Wired. Accessed 9 June 2025. "Joe Lonsdale." Forbes, Accessed 9 June 2025. Kelly, Makena. "DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants." Wired. Accessed 9 June 2025. Lemonides, Alex, et al. "Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump's Agenda." The New York Times, 12 Feb. 2025. Liptak, Adam, and Abbie VanSickle. "Justices Grant DOGE Access to Social Security Data and Let the Team Shield Records." The New York Times, 6 June 2025, Luhby, Priscilla Alvarez, Sunlen Serfaty, Marshall Cohen, Tami. "Elon Musk's DOGE Team Is Building a Master Database for Immigration Enforcement, Sources Say | CNN Politics." CNN, 25 Apr. 2025, Mandavilli, Apoorva. "Palantir's Collection of Disease Data at C.D.C. Stirs Privacy Concerns." The New York Times, 6 June 2025, Natanson, Hannah, et al. "Move Fast, Break Things, Rebuild: Elon Musk's Strategy for U.S. Government." The Washington Post, 24 Feb. 2025, Palantir. "Palantir Is Still Not a Data Company (Palantir Explained, #7)." Medium, 9 June 2025, Palantir IR. Accessed 9 June 2025. "Palantir Privacy and Civil Liberties." Palantir, Accessed 10 June 2025. "Peter Thiel." Forbes, Accessed 9 June 2025. "Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos." The White House, 21 Mar. 2025, Times, The New York. "The People Carrying Out Musk's Plans at DOGE." The New York Times, 27 Feb. 2025. Vincent, Brandi. "'Growing Demand' Sparks DOD to Raise Palantir's Maven Contract to More than $1B." DefenseScoop, 23 May 2025,
Politico
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- Politico
How has the NTSB fared with DOGE?
Presented by With help from Chinanu Okoli, Jessie Blaeser and Oriana Pawlyk QUICK FIX — DOGE has taken a chainsaw to some federal agencies. But so far, the National Transportation Safety Board has emerged relatively unscathed. — Goodbye, Elon Musk. Maybe? — DOT Secretary Sean Duffy is in hot water with the White House as he wades into a looming Senate primary in Michigan. IT'S MONDAY: You're reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. We're glad you're here. Send tips, feedback and song lyrics to Sam at sogozalek@ Chris at cmarquette@ and Oriana at opawlyk@ and follow us at @SamOgozalek, @ChrisMarquette_ and @Oriana0214. 'Well, I started the engine and I gave it some gas/ And Cathy was closing her purse/ Well, we hadn't gone far in my beat-up old car/ And I was prepared for the worst/ 'Will you still see me tomorrow?'/ 'No, I got too much to do'/ Well, a question ain't really a question/ If you know the answer, too.' Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You'll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day's biggest stories. Driving the day NO MASSIVE UPHEAVAL: Even though Elon Musk is (officially) done with his government role, DOGE's cost-cutting mission continues — and so far, the independent National Transportation Safety Board has not experienced massive disruption like other agencies have. A DOGE team, though, was recently assigned to review the NTSB's contracts, staffing and leases, the agency confirmed to POLITICO. It happened about two weeks ago, the agency said Thursday. (Reuters first wrote of the team's existence.) — The NTSB declined to comment further, referring other questions to DOGE, whose recently departed spokesperson, Katie Miller, didn't respond to a request for comment. The group also didn't reply to a message sent via X, its preferred communications platform. SHOW ME THE MONEY: Your MT host examined DOGE's so-called Wall of Receipts, which details its cost-cutting efforts in a sometimes error-riddled fashion, to see how the safety board has fared. DOGE has posted five NTSB contracts it says it has terminated — but has only listed savings in one case: $23,405 for canceling an award to Monica Thakrar Inc., a consulting firm, for 'organizational development services.' (This figure is the difference between the total potential value of the contract and its currently obligated amount. The NTSB had already paid the company $7,519 for its work, according to USA Spending, but on Friday the firm told your MT host that the outlay was actually a bit higher than that: $8,786.) — DOGE claims $0 in savings for the four other terminations, according to data it published on May 26. These included contracts for LinkedIn software licenses and leadership training. BREAKING IT DOWN: NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy in March said the agency didn't fire any probationary workers as part of the Trump administration's wide-scale effort earlier in the year to terminate those employees, who have fewer job protections than other federal staff. She added that the NTSB was exempt from a 'deferred resignation' program. — In a mid-April letter to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Homendy said the agency crafted a reduction-in-force and reorganization plan and expects to eliminate 14 positions 'through regular attrition,' including one in the Office of Highway Safety and two in the Office of Safety Recommendations and Communications. In the letter, which was seen by POLITICO and first reported by Reuters, Homendy added that she was reviewing all roles to 'ensure they are necessary to efficiently and effectively carry out our public safety mission.' Homendy in March told House appropriators that the agency had 427 employees. DOGE WATCH SO LONG ... SORTA?: During an Oval Office news conference Friday billed as a goodbye to Musk, President Donald Trump suggested that the billionaire might continue to drop by as DOGE continues its campaign. 'Elon's really not leaving, he's gonna be back and forth I think, I have a feeling,' Trump told reporters. — Musk, for his part, said he would remain a friend and 'adviser' to Trump. He added that it was only the beginning for DOGE. CHECK IT OUT: Debra Kahn, the former California bureau chief for POLITICO who has a background in covering transportation policy, is now a columnist — and her latest piece digs into Musk's relationship with Democrats, and how the party is conflicted over the billionaire's recent pivot to criticizing the GOP's reconciliation megabill. ELECTION 2026 DUFFY IN THE DOGHOUSE: Trump allies aren't happy with DOT Secretary Sean Duffy for jumping into Michigan's looming Senate primary, with the former congressman headlining a planned Wednesday fundraiser for his friend, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), who's preparing to run against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.). Adam Wren has the scoop. — The move puts Duffy at odds with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and 2024 Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita. 'He did not ask for it to be approved,' a person close to Trump told Adam. A spokesperson for Duffy didn't respond to a request for comment. APPROPRIATIONS DIGGING IN: Chris, Sam and Oriana have the latest on DOT's fiscal 2026 budget request, including how the Trump administration wants to slash money for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and is seeking $111.3 billion in 'new budgetary resources,' according to a summary from the agency. At the Agencies NOT NOW: Duffy recently said that DOT would conduct a RIF as soon as late May — but on Friday, an agency spokesperson confirmed that the department is holding off on a mass-layoff 'due to ongoing litigation' and will revisit the issue once the 'legal issues are resolved.' — As MT readers will know, a federal judge in California has temporarily blocked many agencies, including DOT, from carrying out RIFs while a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees and other groups plays out. The Justice Department sought a pause of the judge's decision, but an appeals court on Friday denied that motion. drones GIVE 'EM A BOOST: A drone industry official told Oriana that the White House is preparing new executive orders that aim to bolster U.S. companies as Chinese rivals dominate the market. They could come as soon as Wednesday, but the strategy remains fluid and is still subject to change. Among other things, the Trump administration wants to speed up rules pending at the FAA that would allow drones to fly farther without an observer present. Aviation A BIT CONFUSING: During the news conference with Musk, Trump on Friday said 'we're bidding out' air traffic control systems 'to the best companies in the world.' (This is an apparent reference to Duffy's plan to modernize FAA infrastructure and technology that underpins the national airspace.) DOT is still seeking an unclear amount of funding from Congress to carry out the initiative. A SIGH OF RELIEF: Duffy in an X post Friday announced that runway construction at Newark Liberty International Airport, which compounded recent communications and radar issues, has wrapped up nearly two weeks ahead of schedule. NEXT STEPS: In a Sunday court filing, a federal judge in Texas laid out a timeline for the ongoing fraud conspiracy case tied to the 2018 and 2019 Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. (The Trump administration has reached a nonprosecution agreement with the company and has asked the judge to dismiss the case.) — Victims' families have to file any responses to the motion to dismiss by June 18, and the government and Boeing must file any replies by June 25. Space ANOTHER PROBE: The FAA said Friday it will oversee a SpaceX-led mishap investigation of the company's ninth test flight of its Starship craft, which broke up on reentry over the Indian Ocean following a propellant leak. (The vehicle's booster, meanwhile, blew up over the Gulf of Mexico, but the agency isn't requiring Musk's company to look into that as it was purposefully subjecting it to extreme testing.) — All 'debris landed within the designated hazard areas,' the FAA said, and there were no reports of injuries or property damage. Starship is grounded until the agency is satisfied with SpaceX's inquiry and its work to address whatever happened during the latest flight. NEW FACES ICYMI: In the premiere episode of The Conversation, POLITICO White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns sat down with Mehmet Oz — now leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — for a candid talk on drug prices, potential Medicaid cuts and why he's getting early morning calls from Trump. Watch the full episode on YouTube. And don't miss a moment — subscribe now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to get new episodes when they drop. The Autobahn — 'Musk Lobbies Washington to Clear Way for Self-Driving Cars.' Bloomberg. — 'On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama.' New York Times. — 'Trump Has Targeted a Plane China Sees as a 'Power' Symbol.' New York Times. — 'Ford recalls more than 29,000 vehicles in the US, NHTSA says.' Reuters. — 'Trump says he'll double steel tariff to 50 percent.' POLITICO Pro. — 'German carmakers promise 'massive' investments in US to dodge Trump tariffs.' POLITICO Pro. — 'Imports plunge in early sign of Trump tariff impact.' POLITICO. — 'White House plans to pull nomination for NASA administrator.' POLITICO.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The 14 percent of federal award money in Trump's crosshairs
President Donald Trump's attempts to slash federal spending have provoked a fiscal melee across the government — and mass confusion about what is happening with hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for road construction, farming assistance, health clinics, medical research and more. The Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget ordered a temporary pause on grant and loan spending to ensure every dollar out the door aligns with the current administration's policy priorities — regardless of priorities that Congress embedded in existing law. The freeze triggered an ongoing court battle over the president's authority to impound congressionally appropriated funds. But while those fights play out, statements and documents from the White House, agencies and court filings have provided a clearer picture of the programs most at risk from Trump's efforts to freeze the money and impose his will on the spending process. POLITICO analyzed federal financial data for thousands of spending programs to determine how much will be in Trump's crosshairs after the court battles resolve. The results show that his administration plans to home in on about 14 percent of federal grant and loan spending, spanning 56 departments and agencies, and providing awards in all 50 states. And people in blue states are more likely to feel the brunt. A spreadsheet that OMB circulated in late January requested information on the status and purpose of 2,623 grant, loan and tax programs. POLITICO used this list as a guide to those programs that could fall under the administration's Jan. 27 command for agencies to impose a temporary freeze on 'all federal financial assistance,' outside of Social Security and Medicare. Those programs accounted for a total of $4.2 trillion in federally approved spending during the last fiscal year, according to transactions logged on the federal financial tracker USA Spending, or the majority of federal spending for the year. The administration quickly ushered out a rough list of caveats, which POLITICO matched with federal programs to identify what would likely be exempt from a coming freeze. After those exceptions, the remaining programs at risk accounted for $579 billion of spending in fiscal 2024. Despite court rulings ordering the administration to thaw the frozen funding and the administration's own assurances that it intended to comply, some of that money remains bottled up. Agencies have further muddied the waters by imposing their own restrictions and clawbacks of individual pots of money, including funding for electric vehicle chargers, $20 billion in federal green grants and $80 million worth of aid to New York City for migrant housing. And Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has championed separate cuts by directing wholesale shutdowns of entire offices and agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while Trump's administration purged thousands of federal workers across the executive branch. OMB also ordered agencies to review 174 tax breaks, such as benefits for troops, the earned-income tax credit and tax provisions under former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to the spending programs. Asked for a list of all programs that would be exempt from a federal spending freeze, the White House directed questions to OMB. OMB did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In its Jan. 27 memo, OMB told agencies to conduct a 'comprehensive analysis' of all their assistance programs to determine whether they meshed with or opposed Trump's policies. The spreadsheet that followed instructed the agencies to answer questions about each program, such as whether they expected to disburse any money before March 15, whether they promoted or supported diversity, abortion or 'gender ideology,' and whether any of the cash would go overseas or assist 'illegal aliens.' The OMB list of programs to review included nearly every single federal award program on the books — and some that are already defunct. In recent years, the total amount spent on these programs has remained consistent, with the exception of Covid-19 spending. Much of that has already expired, such as the Paycheck Protection Program, which ended in May 2021. The $4.2 trillion spent in the last fiscal year consisted of money that agencies have already obligated in legally binding agreements that recipients can draw down over time, and which Biden administration officials had assumed would be safe from Trump's interference. Procurements and federal contracts, such as a Department of Defense contract for fighter jets, are not addressed in the memo. But a footnote in OMB's original memo excluded assistance that goes directly to individuals, naming the two largest spending programs — Social Security and Medicare — as exempt from the freeze. A subsequent memo excluded other major programs such as Medicaid, Pell grants and rental assistance. That still leaves upwards of 2,000 of programs that the freeze could hit, most of which went to Democratic states and Washington, D.C. States Trump won in the 2025 election enjoyed at least $256 billion from programs that may be susceptible to the freeze in the previous fiscal year; states that former Vice President Kamala Harris won received at least $283 billion. A further $40 billion went to U.S. territories or did not have a location accounted for on USA Spending. Broken down into spending per person, that split is more dramatic. Red states received less overall from the programs being targeted, even though the majority of Americans live in a state that Trump won in 2024. Additionally, $34 billion went to recipients in Washington, D.C. — where about 700,000 people live — even if the money ended up paying for work done in other locations. The top program at risk for both red and blue states is highway planning and construction, a major umbrella category that includes billions of dollars in both guaranteed funds to states as well as grants that recipients can apply for. Among Trump-won states, the next-largest type of aid was the national school lunch program. In states Harris won, the second-largest funding source was for USAID, where the money mostly went to recipients in Washington.
Politico
18-02-2025
- Business
- Politico
The 14 percent of federal award money in Trump's crosshairs
President Donald Trump's attempts to slash federal spending have provoked a fiscal melee across the government — and mass confusion about what is happening with hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for road construction, farming assistance, health clinics, medical research and more. The Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget ordered a temporary pause on grant and loan spending to ensure every dollar out the door aligns with the current administration's policy priorities — regardless of priorities that Congress embedded in existing law. The freeze triggered an ongoing court battle over the president's authority to impound congressionally appropriated funds. But while those fights play out, statements and documents from the White House, agencies and court filings have provided a clearer picture of the programs most at risk from Trump's efforts to freeze the money and impose his will on the spending process. POLITICO analyzed federal financial data for thousands of spending programs to determine how much will be in Trump's crosshairs after the court battles resolve. The results show that his administration plans to home in on about 14 percent of federal grant and loan spending, spanning 56 departments and agencies, and providing awards in all 50 states. And people in blue states are more likely to feel the brunt. A spreadsheet that OMB circulated in late January requested information on the status and purpose of 2,623 grant, loan and tax programs. POLITICO used this list as a guide to those programs that could fall under the administration's Jan. 27 command for agencies to impose a temporary freeze on 'all federal financial assistance,' outside of Social Security and Medicare. Those programs accounted for a total of $4.2 trillion in federally approved spending during the last fiscal year, according to transactions logged on the federal financial tracker USA Spending, or the majority of federal spending for the year. The administration quickly ushered out a rough list of caveats, which POLITICO matched with federal programs to identify what would likely be exempt from a coming freeze. After those exceptions, the remaining programs at risk accounted for $579 billion of spending in fiscal 2024. Despite court rulings ordering the administration to thaw the frozen funding and the administration's own assurances that it intended to comply, some of that money remains bottled up. Agencies have further muddied the waters by imposing their own restrictions and clawbacks of individual pots of money, including funding for electric vehicle chargers, $20 billion in federal green grants and $80 million worth of aid to New York City for migrant housing. And Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has championed separate cuts by directing wholesale shutdowns of entire offices and agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while Trump's administration purged thousands of federal workers across the executive branch. OMB also ordered agencies to review 174 tax breaks, such as benefits for troops, the earned-income tax credit and tax provisions under former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to the spending programs. Asked for a list of all programs that would be exempt from a federal spending freeze, the White House directed questions to OMB. OMB did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In its Jan. 27 memo, OMB told agencies to conduct a 'comprehensive analysis' of all their assistance programs to determine whether they meshed with or opposed Trump's policies. The spreadsheet that followed instructed the agencies to answer questions about each program, such as whether they expected to disburse any money before March 15, whether they promoted or supported diversity, abortion or 'gender ideology,' and whether any of the cash would go overseas or assist 'illegal aliens.' The OMB list of programs to review included nearly every single federal award program on the books — and some that are already defunct. In recent years, the total amount spent on these programs has remained consistent, with the exception of Covid-19 spending. Much of that has already expired, such as the Paycheck Protection Program, which ended in May 2021. The $4.2 trillion spent in the last fiscal year consisted of money that agencies have already obligated in legally binding agreements that recipients can draw down over time, and which Biden administration officials had assumed would be safe from Trump's interference. Procurements and federal contracts, such as a Department of Defense contract for fighter jets, are not addressed in the memo. But a footnote in OMB's original memo excluded assistance that goes directly to individuals, naming the two largest spending programs — Social Security and Medicare — as exempt from the freeze. A subsequent memo excluded other major programs such as Medicaid, Pell grants and rental assistance. That still leaves upwards of 2,000 of programs that the freeze could hit, most of which went to Democratic states and Washington, D.C. States Trump won in the 2025 election enjoyed at least $256 billion from programs that may be susceptible to the freeze in the previous fiscal year; states that former Vice President Kamala Harris won received at least $283 billion. A further $40 billion went to U.S. territories or did not have a location accounted for on USA Spending. Broken down into spending per person, that split is more dramatic. Red states received less overall from the programs being targeted, even though the majority of Americans live in a state that Trump won in 2024. Additionally, $34 billion went to recipients in Washington, D.C. — where about 700,000 people live — even if the money ended up paying for work done in other locations. The top program at risk for both red and blue states is highway planning and construction, a major umbrella category that includes billions of dollars in both guaranteed funds to states as well as grants that recipients can apply for. Among Trump-won states, the next-largest type of aid was the national school lunch program. In states Harris won, the second-largest funding source was for USAID, where the money mostly went to recipients in Washington.
