White House Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller locked horns with CNN host Jake Tapper on Tuesday, arguing liberal news organizations have misrepresented the Trump administration’s freeze of certain federal funds.
The Office of Management and Budget issued a memo on Monday pausing all federal grants and loans inconsistent with the president’s executive orders to eradicate “wokeness” and the “weaponization of government.”
However, a White House official told Fox News Digital that the memo was initially “misreported” and does not constitute a funding freeze on federal financial assistance across the board.
Tapper pressed Miller to answer for the uncertainty surrounding the guidance, asking whether Medicaid and Meals on Wheels were going to be affected, although both had been confirmed to be exempt earlier in the day.
Miller argued that any confusion about the memo was “created by the media,” and said, “The OMB guidance memo, if you read it, is as clear as day.”
He emphasized the freeze does not apply to entitlements or other services the government is required to provide, saying, “It does not affect any service to citizens, it does not affect any individual benefit, any public assistance program or anything of that nature.”
“I can‘t help it if left-wing media outlets published a fake news story that caused confusion,” Miller said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tapper said, pointing to Republicans who have also acknowledged confusion about the memo.
Tapper said the order is “pretty broad and confusingly written” and the confusion about it cannot just be blamed on the “liberal media.”
“A false story was put out that people responded to,” Miller argued.
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“As the memo says, in black-and-white letters, no financial benefit programs to Americans are affected. No individual assistance programs are affected. It‘s there in black-and-white,” the White House official later added. “We always knew that the media was going to spin up fake stories, to try to create controversy, to try to create scandal. I‘m not saying you, Jake.”
When Tapper again spoke about public confusion regarding this initiative, Miller responded, “I am sorry that the media has falsely reported on this story.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about in terms of false reporting. It’s a broadly written executive order,” Tapper argued.
“You’re conflating two different things,” Miller said as he explained that after Trump’s executive orders last week, left-wing civil service employees were trying to fund their “pet projects” with discretionary grants, so OMB guidance was written to prevent this.
“You wouldn‘t believe the payments we‘ve had to pause over the last few days with bureaucrats trying to funnel money out of the door,” he claimed, saying these projects need to go under a political review process to be held accountable by taxpayers.
“Either Donald Trump gets political control over this government and ends the waste, abuse and fraud on the American people, or we let bureaucrats autopilot federal spending,” Miller said.
