Longtime Trump rival Letitia James announced she is leading a coalition of 20 states in a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s cuts to public health funding and the Department of Health and Human Services,
The lawsuit, filed by James and other state attorneys general, accuses the Trump administration of violating “hundreds” of laws and regulations in attempting to dismantle the Department of Health and Human Services, both by firing thousands of HHS employees in an effort to slash its overall workforce by 20,000 people and shuttering crucial health programs across the U.S.
Their lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of erasing “decades of public health progress” and leaving HHS “unable to execute many of its most vital functions.”
“This administration is not streamlining the federal government; they are sabotaging it,” James said Monday.
“When you fire the scientists who research infectious diseases, silence the doctors who care for pregnant people and shut down the programs that help firefighters and miners breathe or children thrive, you are not making America healthy; you are putting countless lives at risk,” James said.
“This is not how government is supposed to work. These actions are dangerous, cruel and illegal. They defy Congress’s authority and they violate federal law. And that is why today I am leading a lawsuit joined by Democratic attorneys general across the country to stop this administration from tearing down our public health infrastructure.”
The plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, are asking the court “to halt the unlawful dismantling of HHS, to stop the mass firings, and to restore the life-saving programs that millions of Americans depend on,” James said.
New York is joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys generals of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
Her remarks come after HHS announced thousands of layoffs in March and April, including at the FDA, the CDC and NIH.Â
The lawsuit is not the first time James, a longtime foe of the current president, has sparred with Trump since the start of his second presidential term. She’s joined Democrat attorneys general in more than a dozen other lawsuits challenging his early actions
That the government will finally be in accordance with the law on not funding those not eligible for those benefits is a plus in my book. No more $500 a night hotel stays for years at a time. No more welfare for those not eligible. No more food stamps for those not eligible. Many of them are actually eligible for jail stays according to a supreme court decision in 2019.