Donald Trump is once again picking a fight with Congress over who actually controls the federal purse.
Just days before the end of the fiscal year, the White House announced plans Friday night to cancel roughly $810 million in federal funding for health, education and other programs—money Congress had already approved.
The move immediately triggered outrage from senior lawmakers in both parties, who accused the administration of using an end-of-year maneuver to claw back money lawmakers had appropriated without giving Congress a meaningful opportunity to intervene.
The timing is hardly incidental. The House is already out of town and isn’t scheduled to return until after the November midterm elections, leaving lawmakers with little time to respond before the fiscal year ends next week.
At the center of the dispute is what’s known as a “pocket rescission.” In plain English, the administration is seeking to cancel funding that Congress already approved by withholding it until the money can effectively lapse.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the administration deliberately held the money for months in order to reach this point.
“The White House budget office intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins said.
“I will work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions,” she added.
House Appropriations Committee ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut made a similar accusation, arguing that the administration had been improperly withholding federal funds throughout the year.
“Not only is freezing the money in this proposal illegal, but the administration has also clearly been unlawfully impounding funds all year just to get to this point,” DeLauro said.
The White House characterized the move as “historic action to eliminate wasteful and harmful spending.”
And the largest chunk of the rescission is aimed squarely at immigration-related spending.
About $567 million would be pulled from an account supporting programs run through the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. The administration argues that the money is no longer necessary because fewer migrants are illegally crossing the southern border.
The proposed cuts also include:
$25 million from an Education Department program intended to assist migrant students.
$70 million from grants and fellowship programs supporting foreign students and faculty who study or teach in the United States.
$28 million in health research funding that the administration says is wasteful or duplicative.
$56 million from Department of Housing and Urban Development housing counseling programs that the administration says improperly focused on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The fight could become even bigger after the November elections.
Congress faces a Dec. 11 deadline to fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal 2027, setting up another potentially bruising spending battle.
Normally, the rescission process gives Congress a formal role. The president can ask lawmakers to cancel previously approved funding, triggering a 45-day period during which Congress can approve or reject the request.
The controversy arises when that process runs past the end of the fiscal year.
If funds have been withheld long enough, they can lapse without Congress formally approving their cancellation—a maneuver known as a pocket rescission.
And this isn’t the first time the Trump administration has gone down that road.
Last year, the administration used the same mechanism to cancel roughly $4 billion in foreign aid without congressional approval, setting off criticism from lawmakers in both parties.
Now the same basic fight is back—only this time, the money on the chopping block includes hundreds of millions of dollars Congress approved for health, education, housing and other domestic programs.
And with another major government funding deadline looming after the midterms, the latest clash could be an early preview of an even bigger battle over who gets the final say when Congress approves the money, but the White House doesn’t want to spend it because the president opposes the programs the funds are intended to support.
