Donald Trump Faces New Legal Twist: What Today’s Court Filing Means for the 2024 Race

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump has ignited a new budget showdown by moving to withhold almost $5 billion in foreign assistance that Congress already approved, deploying a rarely used “pocket rescission” strategy that could let the funds lapse when the fiscal year ends on September 30. The White House letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson argues the pause is necessary for “fiscal discipline,” but critics across party lines warn the maneuver sidesteps lawmakers’ constitutional spending authority. Senator Susan Collins, a Republican appropriator, called the gambit “an illegal overreach” and urged the president to negotiate reductions through the normal budget process. Humanitarian groups say a 45-day freeze would push critical United Nations peace-keeping operations, disease-prevention programs and food-security projects past their use-by dates, effectively erasing the money. Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children have already linked earlier U.S. cuts to spikes in child malnutrition deaths in Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia. Broader ‘maximalist’ agenda The funding fight lands amid what analysts describe as Trump’s “maximalist” second-term blueprint — an effort to consolidate presidential control over agencies historically insulated from politics, from the Federal Reserve to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In recent weeks he has: • Ordered reviews of civil-service protections that could make thousands of federal jobs easier to terminate. • Signaled fresh tariff hikes after closing the de-minimis import loophole popular with online bargain hunters. • Floated a reversal of student-visa restrictions on Chinese nationals, drawing backlash from his own base. What happens next Congress has 45 calendar days to pass legislation that expressly restores the $4.9 billion or the money expires. House Democrats are weighing a fast-track “disapproval” resolution, while Senate Republicans face a choice between supporting their party leader or averting humanitarian shortfalls overseas. If the impasse drags past September 30, aid agencies say they will be forced into what the UN calls “triage of human survival,” shuttering clinics and food pipelines at the onset of peak hunger season in East Africa. Why it matters for voters With the 2026 midterms on the horizon, Trump is betting that trimming foreign aid plays well with fiscal conservatives and isolationist voters, even as diplomats warn it could erode U.S. influence in hotspots from Gaza to the South China Sea. The clash also sets up a courtroom test of executive power that may define how far presidents can go in re-writing budgets without Congress — a precedent future administrations could seize upon, regardless of party.