sequence of covid-19, and it just shows that there is a lot of evidence and they have not really been forthcoming. if they do that, we can trust experts again, so thank you. guest: i think he makes reasonable points. there is a severe lack of trust in public health authorities, largely because of the pandemic response, and transparency in public health and more broadly throughout the health sector and people have more confidence in the recommendations from experts. host: brian blase his former white house economic national advisor in the first trump >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we are joined by bobby kogan.

he's the federal budget policy senior director for american progres. -- progress. welcome to the program. the white house rescinded the memo that had frozen all federal grants and loans. on monday night, it had sent out a memo saying that all federal grants, several trillion dollars had been frozen. can you bring us up to speed as to what happened and what's happening now? guest: sure. on day one, the trump administration proposed a few illegal -- a lot of our foreign assistance. on monday, they said we will

freeze about one third of the budget. grants, loans and almost all of the federal financial assistance. all the stuff that go to the states or authorities or that type of stuff. on tuesday, they then sent internal guidance to the agency, saying let's carry it out. the agency sent a bunch of emails to the staff saying they are carrying this out. publicly, they started walking it back. partly, they said let's go forward. publicly, they said that we meant the day one stuff. yesterday, they rescinded the memo that said let's do one third of the budget and they are back to their original illegal process. host: ok. so caroline levitt, the spokesperson for the white house said that the policy itself is still in effect and the memo is not. there was a court case. and a judge has paused that.

so, what's happening with that? guest: the way that i swear that , because the -- square that, because the white house memo didn't say what we all thought it to say. it said let's go beyond our initial pauses and pause one third of the budget. headstart and snap in that sort of stuff. publicly, they said whoa, we are not pausing all of those things. we are doing our original stuff. privately, they implied they were going ahead. their public stance was they were not doing anything. when caroline levitt said -- when they rescinded that monday memo and levitt said we are still going ahead, i believe what she was saying was we are going ahead with our day one stuff. this is a spin to pretend they

have not walked back there monday stuff. the federal judge interpreted it differently and said we don't know what you are saying. let's pause everything. let's put a stay on everything. i believe that was a spin to pretend they have not walked back there monday order. and said our plan was to continue pausing our day one stuff. so we will continue our day one pause. host: currently, given the judges order, bobby, is everything going forward as usual? are all of those expenses going out or are they paused? guest: the caveat that we don't know if they were going to comply with the court order. if they are complying, the monday stuff is pause. but the day one illegal actions are continuing. the foreign assistance pause will still be continuing. and then also, the bipartisan infrastructure law and the efficient introduction act stuff.

that stuff is ongoing. i believe that's what levitt was referring to. the caveat here is that part of the issue is they were giving different information to the agencies rather than the public. it's not clear what they are going to follow. host: the administration argued this was necessary because they wanted to make sure that all funding complies with president trump's agenda. is this typical when a new administration comes in? guest: no, it is not. it is also illegal. you are not allowed to pause for policy reasons. if you look at in 2020, the government account -- accountability office, when they said trump had violated it for his 2019 ukraine pause, they say

you are not allowed to pause for policy reasons. no, this is not typical and it is not allowed. if you don't like a law, you are allowed to try to change it. i would expect a lot of loss to change. there is a path to legally pause a lot of money. they could not have illegally paused all of it, probably. there are ways to try to resend a lot of the money. but you are not allowed to, just because you don't like it, stop carrying out the law. that, you not allowed to do. host: we have bobby kogan with us for the next 20 minutes. if you would like to call in and ask a question about the federal grant and loan money that has been paused by the administration and the memo that has been rescinded, you can do so. it is 202-748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans.

(202) 748-8003 for independents. you mentioned impoundment. can you explain what that is? guest: yeah. impoundment is any action or inaction that causes money to not be spent temporarily or permanently. it is any way in which you cost someone money that is supposed to be -- cost some money that is obligated to be spent -- it was illegal before the impoundment control act existed. they codified that. there were a few sparse court cases before nixon that were never adjudicated. just because the president does something does not mean it is legal. the way to determine whether something is legal is it goes to court and the judge says yeah, that's fine or no, it's not

fine. there are a few sparse cases. nixon sort of broadly impounded. those went to court. before the impoundment control act existed, of the cases that were decided in the merits, nixon lost everyone. the court said hey, here is the money and this is what the law says you have to do with the money. we passed a law before he left office saying this is an allowed but if you want to do it, here are the paths. impoundment is some mechanism through which you are illegally not allowing money to go out. and so, as i say, ica created two paths to legally do it. you can call for the money to be peeled back and you can

pause it temporarily. there's information including what you want to peel back and how long. then you have to give one of the three justifiable reasons. if you do that, you are legally allowed to posit. president trump did not do any of that. it's not ok. he did not give the information required to read he did not pick one of the three justifiable reasons. the come ability office has said clearly that i don't like the policy. policy reasons are not a legitimate reason to pause. host: unless you repeal the impoundment act which is what president trump has said he wants to do on the campaign trail, and his nominee to lead the vote has been a critic of the impoundment act. do you think it is possible politically that that would be repealed? and what impact do you think i would have? guest: sure, i would reiterate

that nixon lost his impoundment cases before the impoundment control act existed. some of them were adjudicated after it existed. they were all adjudicated on pre-impoundment control act law. it's not the way that they speak about this, they say presidents have had the authority to do this for 200 years. within this unconstitutional law came in and unconstitutionally stopped us. as soon as that goes away, we can go back to doing it. that is not true. nixon lost every single case that was decided in the marriage. you can't do it because authorizing lost -- law says you can't do it. you can't do it because appropriations law says you can't do it. i don't expect the supreme court to overturn the impoundment control act. the argument that they are making is that congress may not

bind you on spending. they say that tax law is not optional. the president does not get to pick the tax law. they say that -- they say that criminal law is not optional. you don't depict the severity of any of the crimes listed or whatever. they say that all spending law is optional. that everything is a ceiling treat you can't spend without it. but it's not a target. congress can't mandate it. congress says he is $15 million for a bridge. what they are saying is you can sign into law and say that's fine but i will choose not to do this. they say it would be unconstitutional to say no, you must do this. what that really means is that anything that is currently down

is unconstitutional. it means security's entitlement and medicare's entitlement and medicaid's entire men and snaps entitlement is unconstitutional. the president would be able to say i will give you less because i don't like this. i don't think congress would like that because it usurps congress's role, not just in saying we want to give you money. but you must do with the money that we gave you. it is so radical that i just can't -- with the caveat that the supreme court has found creative ways to interpret the law beyond what many lawyers -- host: i want to play for you a portion of russ vote. he was asked in his recent confirmation hearings about this idea of withholding funding that has been appropriated by congress. then i will have you respond.

>> under your leadership in 2019, of the illegally withheld 214 million dollars that congress appropriated to the department of defense to provide security assistance to ukraine, the government accountability office concluded that on these actions were a violation of the impoundment control act. four years ago you told this committee the under your leadership that omb would abide by the impoundment control act. however, your past actions in public statements suggest that you may not follow this law in the future. my question for you, sir, is if you are confirmed as a whim be director at again, do you commit -- omb director again, do you commit -- >> thanks for the question.

i will commit to upholding the law. i disagree with the characterization of the general a coming office. my time, we followed the law consistently. we will continue to do so. >> do you think that is within the law? >> we did not. we were engaged in a policy process with regard to how funding would flow to ukraine. >> do you believe the impoundment control act of 1974 is the law of the land that you must follow? >> it is the law of the land. the president has run on that issue. he believes it is unconstitutional. for 200 years, presidents have had the ability to spend less for an appropriation if they had the ability to do it for less. as it pertains to the parameters of how we would use that, that is something that his team will have to consider when they are

confirmed in these roles. host: bobby kogan, what do you make of that? guest: thank you for letting me respond to that. i was watching it live and talking to my tv. russ vote says we followed the law because we did release it. and that is not following the law. the law is actually incredibly clear. section 1013 of the impoundment control act says if you want to defer funding, which is what they did, they called for a pause. if you want to defer funding, you must transmit a special message which they can do. and then they can say there are only three acceptable reasons. you heard russ vote say they were doing it for policy reasons. that is not one of the acceptable reasons. here, you can see very clearly, russ vote making the argument against himself in his statement. he says but we released it before the end of the year so we are kosher.