After the Trump administration sowed utter chaos Monday evening when it suddenly announced a freeze on federal loans and grants, it finally relented and rescinded the directive on Wednesday.

The big backtrack came after the Office of Management and Budget put out an order to restrict spending, saying it was intended to halt “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.”

That caused utter confusion, with various bureaucracies not sure if they would receive any federal dollars, and snarling publicly funded services like Meals on Wheels and multiple legal contracts. The move seemed to finally wake Democrats up out of the catatonic state created by their November loss before a federal judge temporarily blocked the order.

That caused Democrats to celebrate, a bit. Washington Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she would take the victory for now.

“I think they are continuing to create chaos,” she told The Independent. “I will take it as a victory for now that they listen to the American people, but it is very clear that they intend to keep going.”

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, one of the president’s biggest supporters, told The Independent that he was okay with the walk back.

“There were some things that they felt like they needed to explain a little bit more,” he said. The former Auburn University football coach said it was totally appropriate for the Trump team to run it back.

“If you don’t do it the right way, bring it back, do it the right way,” he said.

But almost as soon as the White House rescinded the freeze, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt created new confusion by apparently contradicting the cancellation of the order.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo,” she said. “Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction. The President's EOs [executive orders]on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, one of the younger and more internet-savvy Democrats, told The Independent that it was all a scheme.

“They've been pretty consistent that they're freezing funds,” Murphy said. “They are just lying about the impact.”

Murphy said rationalizing the actions of the White House was impossible.

“It's designed chaos, some of it's accidental chaos, but, yeah, I mean, nobody up there knows what's happening,” he said.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin told The Independent that “my sense is that they haven’t” walked back the policy.

It was all part of another day of mayhem largely induced by the Trump administration. On Tuesday evening, the White House’s Office of Personnel Management sent out an email blast to federal workers offering them a nearly eight-month buyout if they put in their resignation by next Thursday.

But on the Senate floor, Senator Tim Kaine, who represents thousands of federal employees in Virginia who commute into Washington, delivered a speech on the floor saying this was a raw deal.

“The president has no authority to make that offer,” Kaine said. “This is a guy who made this [same kind of payment] promise to contractors again and again and again as a private business guy.”

As a result, Kaine, the usually mild-mannered Democrat whom Hillary Clinton named as her running mate because he is so inoffensive, told federal workers not to take the deal.

“Don’t be fooled. He has tricked hundreds of people with that offer,” he said. “If you accept that offer and resign he’ll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors. He doesn’t have any authority to do this.”

But it’s not just Democrats who are confused. Senator Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Republican from Alaska, said she wanted clarity.

“I thought the rescission order was very clear,” she told The Independent. “So what I'm not clear on is the follow [up] comment that came from the White House spokesperson.”

That wasn’t the only chaos this week Robert F. Kennedy had his first confirmation hearing on the Hill before the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday, and it quickly went off the rails, with many Democrats grilling him about his past statements.

Even Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy seemed flustered at Kennedy’s lack of understanding about Medicaid.

Murkowski, who sits on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, told The Independent that she had yet to watch RFK Jr.’s Finance Committee testimony but would before he returns Thursday for his grilling before the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee

So that's “tonight's homework, to listen to some of the questions asked and the responses,” Wednesday, she said. “So anything I should look for specifically that you picked up today?”

Read More