Politics and views in the United States.

Democrats say Trump's order to freeze federal loans and grants puts American lives at risk, Republicans support conditioning California disaster aid to voter ID, and critics say tax credits for private school donations undermine public education.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

This illegal move is a massive, massive overreach by the Trump administration.

The American people did not vote for this kind of senseless chaos.

Democratic Washington Senator Patty Murray says President Donald Trump's sweeping order freezing all federal aid threatens lives and public safety.

She says police, schools, rural hospitals and veterans rely on loans and grants.

Senate Democrats say the order is unconstitutional, and a federal judge has blocked the spending pause until next week.

The White House says Medicaid payments aren't frozen, but state agencies, which serve roughly 80 million people through Medicaid or Children's Health Insurance, report being blocked from the federal payment system.

New Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt says payments to individuals through Medicare, Social Security and food stamps won't be affected.

She says the temporary pause is meant to align spending with Trump's priorities, including ending clean power and diversity projects.

It means no more funding for the green new scam that has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies.

In her first press briefing, Leavitt also said the White House would no longer focus on so-called legacy media, but would allow greater access to bloggers and social media.

Meanwhile, the spending freeze could stall disaster relief for California, which Trump says should stop until the state puts in voter ID.

Noah Garcia with the Dolores Huerta Foundation tells KGET News many Californians wouldn't have access to required documents, including their birth certificate.

And these voters who are disenfranchised are often, you know, black, Latino, Indian American, rural communities and low-income communities.

It's highly unusual to bring a separate topic into this kind of policy fight, but House Speaker Mike Johnson says conditioning wildfire aid on voter ID means tax dollars won't underwrite what he calls California's leftist policies.

More than a dozen states are considering bills to boost private school voucher programs.

Congressional Republicans say they plan to support private schools by adding tax credits for anyone who donates to private school scholarships.

But Zach Sheehan with the New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project says vouchers generally drain funds for public schools.

People deeply value their public schools.

They're often centers of community.

They mean a lot, especially to our rural communities, but to all of our communities in New Hampshire.

And the Supreme Court is declining to hear two voting cases.

Montana's Secretary of State sought to revive two bills struck down by state courts limiting the types of acceptable voter ID.

And Pennsylvania voting rights groups aimed to challenge the state's rejection of some mail-in ballots.

I'm Katherine Carley for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.