California Governor Gavin Newsom used a post on X on Friday afternoon to criticize the Trump administration for a “corrupt” plan to take away federal money from states based on how they voted.He called this action proof that the White House is acting more like an authoritarian government, similar to the types he has compared President Trump to in the past year.The post was made on July 24, 2026, at 3:49 p.m., from Newsom’s official X account, just hours after new court documents showed federal officials confirmed that billions of dollars in energy grants were canceled purely because of how states voted in the 2024 election.
Newsom’s complete message said: “The corrupt Trump administration has just admitted to withholding taxpayer money from states based on how they voted.
Last I checked, we were a democracy, not a dictatorship.Where the hell is Congress?”
The court filing that started this argument shows that the Department of Energy admitted in federal court that they canceled 284 clean energy grants worth about $7.5 billion in October 2025, ignoring factors like how well the projects worked or whether they followed the law.
A government lawyer said that with one exception, every grant canceled was in a state that supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and had two Democratic senators.The department’s lawyers also said none of the grants were canceled because of how good the projects were or how much they cost.
This is different from how the administration first explained the cuts.
When the cancellations were first announced last October, officials said they were stopping wasteful spending on climate projects from the Biden era.A White House official said they were canceling nearly $8 billion in “Green New Scam” funding for the left’s climate agenda.But the new court documents show the main reason for the cuts was the political views of the states where the grants were given.
This pattern shows that Republican-leaning states were not affected.
According to the government’s own filings, hundreds of other energy grants that the Energy Department had recommended for cancellation were still funded because they were in states that voted for Trump.Of about 624 grants initially flagged for possible cancellation, only 284 were actually canceled — and every one (except one) was in a state that supported Harris.These projects included grid upgrades in California and Oregon, methane leak reduction in Colorado, and clean hydrogen hubs in California and the Pacific Northwest, some of which are now being litigated.
This contradicts sworn testimony from Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who told a House hearing in June that “no decisions were made on politics” when deciding which grants to cancel.
A spokesperson for the Energy Department said there was no contradiction and that Wright was talking about the review process before the cancellations were announced.The spokesperson said that no decisions were based on political factors.
Congressional Democrats quickly criticized the disclosure.
Senators Patty Murray from Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Rep.Marcy Kaptur from Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the House energy appropriations panel, released a joint statement calling the funding cuts “outright un-American.” They said the administration has now admitted in court what was obvious: nearly 300 energy projects were cut because the states they were in did not vote for the president in 2024.They added that this shows the president and his team abused their power to kill good jobs and punish families because of their political views.
Not an Isolated Incident, Advocates Say
Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former member of the Biden administration, said the recent event shows how much the administration is willing to use politics to influence federal spending.
“The risk the Trump administration is willing to go to extreme lengths to politicize grant-making is not a hypothetical,” O’Connor said.He added, “If they are willing to be so open about it, then we should take seriously their new plan that would allow the extreme politicization of grant-making across the entire federal government.” The Trump administration is now finishing new rules, expected to be ready by October, which would let political appointees directly review and block more than $1 trillion in annual federal grants across all agencies.The rules also include new limits that stop recipients from doing or saying things considered “anti-American.”
A Legal Fight California Has Already Won Once
This isn’t the first time a federal court has taken a stand in this funding dispute.
In April 2026, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the Department of Energy had agreed to stop appealing a court decision that ruled against a policy limiting reimbursements for state energy programs.He called it “a clear legal victory” for the states.“The Trump Administration is finally realizing what my office has said all along: approved energy funding isn’t up for grabs,” Bonta said in a statement on the California Department of Justice website.Just days before Newsom’s Friday post, a federal judge ruled that the administration’s cancellation of $7.6 billion in clean energy grants for 16 states that supported Trump in 2024 was unconstitutional.U.S.District Judge Amit Mehta said the administration admitted its grant-termination decisions were mainly based on whether the awardee lived in a state where Trump voters were majority.He found no valid reason for the targeting and said the action violated the Constitution’s equal protection principles.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Funding Threats Against California
Friday’s post is the latest in a long series of funding conflicts between Sacramento and Washington.
In July, the Trump administration froze over $867 million in Medicare and Medicaid funds for California, and Newsom’s office called it a “recycled political stunt,” saying the state was being targeted because of political reasons.In January, the administration froze child care and family assistance funding in California, along with Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York — all Democratic-led states.An HHS spokesperson said the freeze was to stop “fraud.” Newsom has also warned that Californians pay over $80 billion more in taxes than they get back from the federal government and suggested the state might stop contributing altogether if the funding threats continued.
Newsom Has Long Accused Trump of Authoritarian Drift
Friday’s “democracy, not a dictatorship” message follows a pattern Newsom has repeated over the past year.
In June 2025, after Trump sent nearly 5,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles during immigration protests, Newsom told the public that “what we’re witnessing is not law enforcement, it’s authoritarianism.” He compared Trump to “other failed dictators” and said that “democracy is under assault right before our eyes.The moment we’ve feared has arrived.” In his final State of the State address in January 2026, Newsom again called Trump an autocrat and said he was undermining democracy, while praising California’s independent path.He has also taken legislative action related to this theme, signing a law in June that imposes a 100% state tax on any Californian who benefits from a Trump-linked fund connected to people convicted of participating in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.At the time, he said, “taxpayer dollars should support victims, not the people who attacked law enforcement officers and our very democracy.”
The Broader Stakes for Federal Grant-Making
Critics worry the fight over the 284 energy grants is just the beginning of a much bigger change.
The administration’s new grant-making rules would require political appointees to approve all federal funding decisions across agencies like education, health, housing, and infrastructure, with the power to cancel funds that don’t match the administration’s priorities.During a recent congressional hearing, Vought defended the plan, telling lawmakers it would ensure “democratic control of spending.” The proposed rules have drawn thousands of public comments against them from antipoverty groups, arts organizations, city officials, law enforcement leaders, and scientists, who argue the changes would let the White House use federal aid as a political tool nationwide.
What Comes Next
The White House did not respond to requests for comments on the court filing or on Newsom’s post.
With the Energy Department denying that politics influenced its decisions, even as its own lawyers told a federal judge otherwise, and with new grant-control rules due by October, the fight over the 284 canceled grants is likely to remain a key issue as the fall approaches — one Newsom, who is seen as considering a 2028 presidential run, has not shown any signs of letting go of.His Friday question — “Where the hell is Congress?” — went unanswered by lawmakers on Capitol Hill by Friday evening.
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