The Trump administration’s expansive freeze on federal grants and other executive spending roiled Washington on Tuesday, drawing howls from Democrats — and a few well-placed Republicans — who say the president is abusing his powers at the expense of public services.

As director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought plans to implement the most critical parts of the new Trump agenda.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top Trump ally, says the White House pardoning rioters who fought with police while storming the U.S. is “sending the wrong signal.”

President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan Laken Riley Act into law as his administration’s first piece of legislation. People who are in the United States illegally and are accused of theft and violent crimes would have to be detained and potentially deported even before a conviction.

The start of President Donald Trump's second term has been marked by a flurry of executive orders and challenges to his policies in courts. A federal judge ordered a temporary halt on a White House plan to pause funding for all federal grants and loans.

"The Senate must not be business as usual," warned Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as nearly two dozen Democrats cast a protest vote on a Trump nominee.

Donald Trump’s move to pause trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans awakened widespread Democratic resistance to the new president’s second term that was felt Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in governors’ offices and in the race to helm the party’s national committee.

President Donald Trump's budget office on Monday ordered all federal agencies to temporarily block disbursement of grants and loans.

The White House is taking drastic measures to control trillions of federal dollars by ordering a freeze on all federal grants and loans so the Trump administration can review government spending.

Though the Senate Budget Committee only requires 11 members to be present for votes, the boycott of the vote to approve Russ Vought as head of the Office of Management and Budget by Democrats on

Trump’s early, extraordinary steps pose a direct challenge to a fundamental underpinning of the Constitution: the power of the purse.