By Tyler O'Neil, The Daily Signal | January 29, 2025
The Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump ordered a temporary freeze of federal funding Monday, aiming to prevent taxpayer dollars from supporting “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering.” While that order has since been rescinded amid a legal challenge, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that efforts to “end the egregious waste of federal funding” will continue.
A largely nameless coalition of nonprofits sued to block the freeze and a federal judge temporarily blocked it Tuesday, before the administration changed its strategy.
Which nonprofits sued to block the freeze? While the full answer to that question remains murky, many of the groups behind the lawsuit are left-leaning and they chose a left-leaning law firm to represent them.
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Democracy Forward
Democracy Forward, a left-leaning firm that has Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias as its board chair, represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Elias, who served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, has a long history of attempting to flip elections where Democrats lost. He hired Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Trump-Russia dossier. Last year, he worked with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., to try to reverse the results of the 2024 Senate election in Pennsylvania, which Republican Dave McCormick won.
Democracy Forward has many initiatives aimed at opposing the Trump administration, including a project aimed at preventing the administration from rooting out potential deep state actors.
National Council of Nonprofits
The first plaintiff group, the National Council of Nonprofits, claims in the lawsuit that it represents “more than 30,000 organizational members.” The council does not name any of the members who would be harmed by the freeze, however.
“Many of NCN’s members rely on federal grants and financial assistance to serve their missions, from supporting research and services to those with cancer and other serious diseases, to assisting people in escaping domestic violence, to providing mental health care and suicide hotlines,” the lawsuit states. “Federal grants and financial assistance are the lifeblood of operations and programs for many of these nonprofits, and even a short pause in funding—which, for many NCN members, is already in the pipeline—could deprive people and communities of their life-saving services.”
While the council’s claims seem noble, many of these “suicide hotlines” collude with transgender activist groups like The Trevor Project, which pushes gender ideology on kids and scares parents into silence by claiming that kids who identify as transgender will commit suicide if not “affirmed.”
My new book “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government” reveals how a large group of radical nonprofits I call the Woketopus inserts its tentacles into the administrative state, influencing policy without needing to go to Congress. The book also exposes how some of the nonprofits that receive federal funding also advocate for woke policies in the federal government. Environmental activist groups like the National Wildlife Federation receive federal grants for education programs, and a broad swath of groups receive federal funding to house and transport illegal aliens across the U.S.
The National Wildlife Federation pressures the federal government to crack down on oil and gas. Most of the groups that receive funding to transport illegal aliens—which I call the Immigration Industrial Complex—have opposed bills that would address the border crisis.
It stands to reason that the Trump administration may seek to reconsider these grants, and it seems likely that some of the woke activist groups may be among the National Council of Nonprofits’ members.
The Daily Signal asked the council to name all the organizations it was representing in the lawsuit. The council did not respond.
American Public Health Association
Don’t be hoodwinked by the American Public Health Association’s anodyne name. This group of doctors focuses on “Climate, Health and Equity” and creating “equitable school environments” for “transgender students.” The association became the first public health entity to declare “structural racism” a public health crisis after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
The association “has long received federal grants and funds to carry out its mission,” the lawsuit states. It mentions “The National Council for Environmental Health and Equity, which provides community-based organizations working to advance environmental justice with grants, and is supported by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention].”
That program appears to be part of the problem the Trump administration aims to combat.
The association states in the lawsuit that it represents “more than 23,000 individual members.”
The association did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about which members might be included in the lawsuit and about whether it works with pro-transgender groups like Planned Parenthood or the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
Main Street Alliance
Main Street Alliance, which bills itself as representing “approximately 30,000 small businesses across the United States,” notes in the lawsuit that most of its members receive grants, loans, and loan guarantees. “The majority of MSA’s members receive some form of this assistance,” the lawsuit states.
Don’t be fooled by the innocuous-sounding name: The Main Street Alliance was founded in 2008 to advocate for health care changes that evolved into the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. The group advocates for leftist policies on economics, health care, and immigration.
SAGE
SAGE is an advocacy group focused on helping elderly people who identify as LGBTQ+.
“SAGE operates through a variety of programs, including, for example, the National Resource Center on LGBTQ+ Aging, which has as its goal to provide ongoing and sustainable resource development, technical assistance, education, and training that supports networks in providing services to LGBTQ+ older adults and their caregivers,” the lawsuit states.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Community Living provided a grant to establish the National Resource Center on LGBTQ+ Aging in 2010.
Helping LGBTQ+ people as they age may be a noble goal, but should taxpayers be footing the bill for it?
Yet the lawsuit also notes that the Administration for Community Living gave SAGE funds to establish an online hub, SAGEYou, “which is funded exclusively through this federal appropriation.”
This lawsuit may have convinced a judge to halt the Trump administration’s funding freeze, but it also arguably makes the case for cutting much of this federal funding.
The United States has an astonishingly large national debt, and Trump has a mandate to cut waste and abuse from the government. It seems rather revealing that these leftist groups are receiving so much federal largesse. Perhaps this lawsuit, like my book, may be a road map for which organizations to consider defunding.
Tyler O'Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of two books: "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center," and "The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government."
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