Judge orders Trump administration to immediately unfreeze federal funding and to stop violating his rulings

• A judge Monday found Trump is flouting his order from last week that paused a freeze on spending.
• The judge ordered the administration to restore and resume all frozen funding immediately.
• The order was by the federal judge in Rhode Island overseeing a lawsuit brought by 22 states and DC.

The Trump administration is violating a federal court order by continuing to freeze funding for federal programs, a judge in Rhode Island found on Monday.

In a sharply worded response, US District Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., who is overseeing a lawsuit brought by 22 states and the District of Columbia, ordered the administration to immediately restore and resume the funding.

The order is the first major challenge to recent suggestions that if President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and DOGE director Elon Musk don't like what a judge orders, one option is to ignore it, said Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School.

"That's some tough language — the judge is not messing around," Paradis told Business Insider.

"This is a direct, and I think quite aware rebuke by the district court of President Trump and his allies challenging the authority of the courts in a very public and really aggressive way," he said.

McConnell's order comes in response to evidence from the plaintiff states showing that the freeze — which he said was causing "irreparable harm" and was "likely unconstitutional" — is being flouted, the judge wrote.

"The Defendants must immediately restore frozen funding" as the court weighs the state's claims and the government's arguments on behalf of the freeze, the judge wrote.

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new court order or the judge's accusations that last week's order was being ignored.

This is a breaking story; please check back for developments.