The White House announced Friday it was withholding more than $2 billion for transportation projects in Chicago and examining ways to reduce federal funding to Portland, Oregon, the latest bid to use the shutdown to target political opponents in Democratic strongholds.
White House budget director Russell Vought said in a post on X early Friday that “$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects — specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project — have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.”