President Trump on Thursday walked back his own education secretary's proposal to cut funding for the Special Olympics, saying he had personally intervened to make sure the sports organization continues to receive federal dollars.
The stunning flip-flop came amid bipartisan backlash over Secretary Betsy DeVos' plan to terminate the $17.6 million grant that the Special Olympics organization receives annually.
DeVos welcomed Trump's change of heart.
DeVos' statement posed a departure from her comments a day earlier favoring a Special Olympics budget bloodletting.
The secretary also trashed "shameful" and "counterproductive" journalists and members of Congress for scrutinizing her proposed cuts.
The now-reversed Special Olympics slashing was part of Trump's 2020 budget blueprint, which seeks to drastically reduce funding for all federal departments and agencies except for the military.
Democrats have near-unanimously made clear they will not pass the budget in the shape it has been rolled out by the White House.
DeVos went before congressional budget committees this week and claimed she's actually a huge fan of the Special Olympics.
"I love Special Olympics myself," she testified.
Freshman New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ripped into DeVos by listing off a number of other controversial education budget cuts that DeVos has proposed and enacted.