It's not just about sending federal law enforcement officers into Minnesota.
President Donald Trump's administration is also lashing out at the state by threatening to withhold billions in federal money, much of it intended to help low-income families with food aid, health care and child care — and with a new lawsuit against the state.
Trump's administration has struck out at Democratic-run states broadly, but it's made a prime example of Minnesota, where the president last month called the state's Somali population “garbage," targeting it with actions not seen elsewhere.
The administration has not spelled out its exact plans in most cases, and it's not clear if some of the money will actually stop flowing — or, if so, when.
Trump's administration has unleashed a wave of threats to halt the flow of some federal funds to other states, too — including federal funds to “sanctuary cities” that limit cooperation with federal immigration officials and their states.
Minnesota has been singled out in some cuts as Trump repeatedly criticizes Gov. Tim Walz over fraud in federal programs. Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee and a high-profile Trump critic, ended his campaign this month for a third term, saying he couldn't run a campaign while fending off the attacks and running the state.
Minnesota is pushing back in courts or otherwise.
Here's a look at the planned freezes in Minnesota.
The Agriculture Department said it’s freezing funding in the state and its largest city, Minneapolis — but without laying out many details. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a social media post Jan. 9 announcing the action: “No more handouts to thieves!”
In a letter to Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, she cited a major fraud case involving a USDA-funded pandemic relief program that broke in 2022 in which 78 people have been charged — and 57 convicted.
Rollins said she was suspending all current and future awards to the city and state and told them to provide payment justifications for all transactions since Jan. 20, 2025, the day Trump returned to office. The justifications would be required to receive future money, too.
Rollins said the awards at risk total more than $129 million but did not specify which programs are included. Her department has not clarified whether the amount includes payments that go to individuals, or just those to government entities.
Based on the figure from Rollins, the freeze would not appear to include funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps about 1 in 12 Minnesota residents buy groceries. Minnesota residents received more than $850 million through that program in 2024. Still, a Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families website says the department is analyzing any impacts to SNAP.
It also appears the National School Lunch Program, which provides and subsidizes school meals, is not included. Minnesota was expected to receive more than $240 million in that program in the budget year that ended Sept. 30.
The Agriculture Department also runs programs aimed at food producers, including disaster aid and price supports.
Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Thom Peterson said at a news conference Wednesday that it's not clear exactly which programs might lose funding, but the state has started receiving notices from some pauses, including to a University of Minnesota poultry testing lab. He said that leaves uncertainty about who would pay if avian influenza is found at a farm and birds must be removed.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also told Minnesota last week that it intends to withhold $515 million every three months from 14 Medicaid programs that were deemed high risk after rejecting a corrective action plan the federal government demanded because of fraud allegations.
The programs identified as high risk include adult companion services, residential treatment services and nonemergency medical transportation.
The amount to be withheld is equivalent to one-fourth of the federal money for those programs.
On a call with reporters Tuesday, state Department of Human Services said they were mounting an administrative appeal to the freeze.
They said the department has been emphasizing anti-fraud measures for more than a year and questioned the federal action, which they said is unlike anything they've found in other states.
“Minnesota cannot absorb the loss of more than $2 billion in annual funding for these programs without catastrophic consequences for the people we serve,” Temporary Human Services Commissioner Shireen Gandhi said, adding that the state can’t find other examples of similar federal decisions.
“It's not corrective action,” she said. “It's a punitive action.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Minnesota in late December that it was freezing funds in the child Care and Development Block Grant, which subsidizes child care for low-income families, telling the state that it had to submit attendance records and other information before the money would flow again.
Last week, the Trump administration said it was halting payments of the child care money, along with temporary aid for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which provides job training and cash assistance, and the Social Services Block Grant, which funds a variety of social services, for Minnesota and four other states where Democrats lead the government.
The five states — along with Minnesota, California, Colorado, Illinois and New York — sued. Advocates and officials warned that stopping the childcare subsidy would put many daycare providers at risk of layoffs of closures. And those could put the families of all their clients in binds, not just those who rely on the subsidies.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that the administration cannot block the money for now.
The federal administration on Wednesday unleashed another line of attack on the Minnesota state government.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state government in federal court over its affirmative action hiring requirements. The lawsuit seeks to end programs intended to diversify the government workforce, claiming “Minnesota requires its hiring managers to jump through additional hoops to hire employees with disfavored skin colors or sex chromosomes."
The lawsuit also seeks money for employees and prospective employees who were impacted.
The state attorney general's office said it would respond in court.
A person confronts a U.S. Border Patrol officer Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a news conference on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026 at the Coliseum Building in Minneapolis. (Alex Kormann/Star Tribune via AP)
President Donald Trump delivers remarks to the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino Hotel, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez said Wednesday her government would continue releasing prisoners detained under former President Nicolás Maduro's rule in what she described as “a new political moment” since his ouster by the United States earlier this month.
It appeared to be an understatement for the Maduro loyalist now tasked with placating an unpredictable American president who has said he will “run” Venezuela, while also consolidating power in a government that long has seethed against U.S. meddling.
Rodríguez opened her first press briefing since Maduro's capture by U.S. forces with a conciliatory tone. Addressing journalists from a red carpet at the presidential palace in the capital, Caracas, she offered assurances that the process of releasing detainees — a move reportedly made at the behest of the Trump administration — “has not yet concluded.”
The lawyer and veteran politician pitched a “Venezuela that opens itself to a new political moment, that allows for ... political and ideological diversity.”
A Venezuelan human rights organization estimates about 800 political prisoners are still being detained. That figure includes political leaders, soldiers, lawyers and members of civil society.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was seized and flown to the U.S. on Jan. 3 to face drug-trafficking charges.
“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump said during a bill signing in the Oval Office. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”
Unlike past speeches directed at her domestic audience that echoed Maduro’s anti-imperialist rhetoric, Rodríguez did not mention the U.S. — or the dizzying pace at which relations between both countries were evolving.
But she criticized organizations that advocate on behalf of prisoners’ rights. She pledged “strict” enforcement of the law and credited Maduro with starting the prisoner releases as a signal that her government meant no wholesale break from the past.
“Crimes related to the constitutional order are being evaluated,” she said, in apparent reference to detainees held on what human rights groups say are politically motivated charges. “Messages of hatred, intolerance, acts of violence will not be permitted.”
Flanked by her brother and National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, as well as hard-line Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, she took no questions. Cabello, she said, was coordinating the prisoner releases, which have drawn criticism for being too slow and secretive.
Trump has enlisted Rodríguez to help secure U.S. control over Venezuela’s oil sales despite sanctioning her for human rights violations during his first term. To ensure she does his bidding, earlier this month, Trump threatened Rodríguez with a “situation probably worse than Maduro,” who is being held in a Brooklyn jail.
Maduro has pleaded not guilty to drug-related charges.
In endorsing Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, Trump has sidelined María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition who won a Nobel Peace Prize last year for her campaign to restore the nation’s democracy. Machado is scheduled to meet with Trump on Thursday at the White House.
After a lengthy career running Venezuela’s feared intelligence service, managing its crucial oil industry and representing the revolution started by the late Hugo Chávez on the world stage, Rodríguez now walks a tightrope, navigating pressures from both Washington and her hard-line colleagues who hold sway over the security forces.
“The regime, on one hand, wants to send a message within Venezuela that it still has complete control and the United States isn’t dominating,” said Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory in Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario. “On the other hand, internationally it's sending a message of gradual progress with the release of political prisoners. ... They’re playing a game.”
Those tensions were on display in her speech Wednesday, which focused only on the issue of prisoner releases. Venezuela’s leading prisoner rights organization, Foro Penal, has verified at least 68 prisoners freed since her interim government raised hopes for a mass release with a promise to free a “significant number” of prisoners.
Foro Penal reported the release of at least a dozen prisoners on Wednesday, including political activist Nicmer Evans. Machado campaign staffers Julio Balza and Gabriel González, whose detentions were considered to be for political reasons, were also freed on Wednesday, the opposition leader’s party announced.
Earlier this week, Rodríguez's government released several U.S. citizens, as well as Italian and Spanish nationals and opposition figures.
But it was Maduro who first started the process of releasing prisoners, Rodríguez insisted, apparently pushing back on White House claims that the prisoners were being freed due to U.S. pressure. She said Maduro oversaw the release of 194 prisoners in December because he “was thinking precisely about opening spaces for understanding, for coexistence, for tolerance.”
She claimed her own caretaker government had released 212 detainees, without offering any evidence. Foro Penal estimates that over 800 prisoners were still held in Venezuela’s prison system on political grounds, and has criticized the government's lack of transparency.
Rodríguez did not address those complaints. Instead, she slammed “self-proclaimed nongovernmental organizations” as having “tried to sell falsehoods about Venezuela.”
“There will always be those who want to fish in troubled waters,” she said, trying to present her first press briefing as an effort to counter false narratives and “let the truth be reported.”
Carlos Rojas, a journalist freed after 18 months in jail, prays with his partner, Francy Fernandez, on the day of his release from prison at La Candelaria Church in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
A woman who lives near the Cardon refinery hangs clothes to dry in Punto Fijo, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Supporters of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro rally calling for his release as he faces trial in the United States after being captured by U.S. forces, in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, right, wave before making a statement at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Carlos Rojas, a journalist freed after 18 months in jail, prays with his partner, Francy Fernandez, on the day of his release from prison at La Candelaria Church in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Relatives and friends of political prisoners hold banners and candles calling for their loved ones to be set free outside the Rodeo I prison in Guatire, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026 after the government announced prisoners would be released. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Narwin Gil cries as she waits for news of her detained sister, Marylyn Gil, outside El Helicoide, headquarters of Venezuela's intelligence service and a detention center, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Mileidy Mendoza, center, waits at Zone 7 of the Bolivarian National Police, where her fiancé Eric Diaz is being held as a political detainee in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, after the government announced prisoners would be released.(AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Students lay out photos of people they consider political prisoners at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez, center, smiles flanked by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, right, and National Assembly President, her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, as they prepare to make a statement at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
