Nearly two dozen states on Tuesday sued the Department of Health and Human Services over a planned $11 billion funding cut for public health projects while New Jersey Senator Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours in protest of Trump administration policies.
Amid the Trump administration’s dramatic cuts to federal health agencies, Democratic states and representatives are pushing back.
On Tuesday, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) delivered a record-breaking floor speech, talking for more than 25 hours about the atrocities brought by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, a group of 23 states plus the District of Columbia sued President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, requesting an emergency temporary restraining order against the $11 billion cuts to public health projects. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also named as a defendant in the suit.
“Defendants issued mass terminations for billions of dollars in vital public health funding with no warning and effective immediately,” the complaint reads. The Trump administration last week terminated $11.4 billion in COVID-19 funding at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—money that is typically earmarked for state and local health departments across the country.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” read an HHS statement, as reported by the Associated Press. The money from the terminated funding is set to return to the CDC 30 days from the date of termination.
In their suit, state Attorneys General argued that the funding cuts are “unlawful” and “exceed Defendants’ statutory and regulatory authority,” calling them “arbitrary and capricious.”
The complainant argued that these health funds were not intended by Congress to be limited “to the period of the COVID-19 emergency.” Lawmakers during the pandemic “made wide-ranging public health investments.”
“Defendants have never alleged, much less demonstrated, any failure by fund recipients to comply with the applicable terms and conditions of the grants and agreement,” they argued.
The states are asking the court to vacate the government’s health funding cuts and prevent “any other further actions taken by the Defendants to implement or enforce” these cuts.
Earlier this week, Cantor Fitzgerald analysts went even further, calling for the removal of RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary. A poll BioSpace posted to LinkedIn shows that many support this action.
Meanwhile, in his speech on Tuesday, Booker spoke out broadly against Trump and his “complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the needs of the American people,” according to his X post. Booker broke the record for the longest known floor speech, stretching for more than 25 hours.
During that time, Booker did not eat, take a bathroom break or even sit down.
The Senator took aim at Trump’s cuts, particularly those on social security, and his recent talk of annexing Greenland and Canada, which he said could pose a constitutional crisis, as per the Associated Press. Booker also rallied his fellow Democrats, saying that in the face of the “threats” posed by Trump, “we must all do more to stand against them.”
Editor’s note (April 2): This story has been updated from its original version to include the poll of BioSpace followers on LinkedIn.
