AG Ford joins lawsuit against RFK, HHS over ending Nevada health grants

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford speaks during a news conference at the Nevada Attorney General’s Las Vegas office Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. Attorneys general from 18 states, including Nevada, are suing the Trump administration to stop it from eliminating birthright citizenship. Photo by: Steve Marcus

Attorney General Aaron Ford has joined a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for canceling $12 billion in grants, $35 million of which Ford says was tabbed for local health initiatives.

Ford, who filed the suit alongside 23 other Democratic attorneys general, wrote in a release that the terminations “came with no warning or legally valid explanation.” The cuts have caused “chaos” for state health agencies, the attorney general said.

“This action displays a complete indifference to the lives of Nevadans, and I am confident that we will prevail in court to stop this unlawful and destructive decision,” Ford wrote, adding that there have already been dozens of layoffs in Nevada.

The Nevada Independent reported Wednesday that 25 employees in the state health department’s Division of Public and Behavioral Health were let go due to the cuts. Twenty were also laid off from UNLV’s School of Public Health.

A Health and Human Services spokesperson told NBC News last week that the agency “will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.

The spokesperson added that Health and Human Services will be prioritizing funding President Donald Trump’s “mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.

Ford wrote that many of the pandemic-era grants were created by Congress and that Kennedy has no authority to terminate them by stating that the health crisis is now over.

The group of attorneys general are looking to get a temporary restraining order to prevent the cuts in the states that are suing.

“The consequences for public health in our state if these illegal cuts stand are dire. As attorney general, I’m suing to defend the rule of law and to protect Nevadans from these unlawful cuts,” Ford wrote.