AZ AG Mayes Joins Another Suit Thwarting Trump Admin

Yet again, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has enjoined another multi-state lawsuit attempting to thwart key elements of the Trump administration’s government waste savings proposals. This time, it’s to prevent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from cutting a grant program based on what the administration has identified as based on DEI. As with the many other suits Mayes has joined, the suit is being brought against the Health and Human Services (HHS) by a group of 16 “blue state” AGs.

The grant program, administered by the National Institutes for Health (NIH) under the umbrella of HHS, provides funding for research and more for a wide variety of health issues. HHS canceled this grant category because the administration deemed it to fall under the DEI mantle. For example, one such grant, issued to the State University of New York, included projects on Alzheimer’s disease in Asian and Latino Americans, substance abuse risks for LGBTQ+ youth, and HIV treatments. The suit alleges that letters sent to the states indicated the canceled grants focused on “transgender issues… vaccine hesitancy,” and other DEI-related programs.

Kennedy is canceling all such grants under Trump’s “no-DEI” promise. The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order against the “mass grant terminations.” The restraining order, however, is limited to the states participating in the suit.

On April 1, 2025, Mayes released an official statement condemning the HHS cuts, writing, “I cannot overstate how reckless and illegal these cuts are. By slashing these grants, the Trump administration has launched an all-out attack on Arizona’s public health system — harming the entire state, but hitting rural communities the hardest.”

She added that eliminating the grants “would devastate” healthcare and jobs in Arizona, citing the potential loss of over $239 million in federal funding. She added, “With this single threat, Secretary Kennedy has all but ensured that more Arizonans will get sick and die the next time we suffer an infectious disease outbreak, or God forbid, another pandemic.”

Given that states filed the suit in what some consider a liberal court, in the state of Rhode Island, this action will likely join the growing list of local judges who have thwarted the Trump administration’s efforts, as it describes, to clean up “waste, fraud, and abuse.”