The White House is placing a hold on $2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects after Democrats allowed government funding to expire on Wednesday.
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought took to X early Friday morning to announce the action.
“$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects — specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project — have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,” he wrote, adding the U.S. Department of Transportation would be releasing more information.
Vought has already announced other significant measures to save on funds due to the government shutdown. On Wednesday, he announced almost $8 billion in “Green New Scam” funding cancellations to promote leftwing climate policies, which affected projects in sixteen blue or blue-leaning states.
The White House also announced Wednesday it was pausing $18 billion in infrastructure projects for New York City. The Chicago infrastructure pause follows Trump and Vought’s meeting on Thursday.
Republicans worked to keep the government open in the lead-up to the shutdown. House Republicans and Rep Jared Golden (D-ME) passed a clean continuing resolution (CR) on September 19, which would continue to fund the government at the 2024 levels approved by then-President Joe Biden. However, Democrats blocked the passage of the bill in the Senate, refusing to help Republicans reach the 60-vote threshold to break cloture and unlock a floor vote on the CR.
In response to a question from Breitbart News in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump emphasized Republicans wanted to keep the government open.
“They are shutting it down. We’re not shutting it down. We don’t want it to shut down because we have the greatest period of time ever. I tell you we have $17 trillion being invested, so the last person that wants it shut down is us,” Trump said.
He added that Democrats were taking a gamble in refusing to help fund the government.
“With that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible that are bad for them, and irreversible by them–like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump added. “And you all know Russell Vought, he’s become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way.”
“So they’re taking a risk by having a shutdown because, because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits; we can cut large numbers of people out. We don’t want to do that, but we don’t want fraud, waste, and abuse, and, you know, we’re cutting that,” Trump said. “But they want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive health care at the cost to everybody else, and we don’t have it.”
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