Three different federal judges delivered legal setbacks and slap downs to President Donald Trump in the span of an hour and a half on Tuesday in a series of cases challenging controversial moves taken during the early days of his second term.

       The rulings from judges in Washington, DC, and Washington state are the latest to pump the brakes on Trump’s agenda, underscoring the critical role courts have taken on for foes of Trump looking to frustrate his actions.

       In DC, Judge Loren AliKhan issued a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocks the administration from freezing federal grants and loans. The ruling expands an earlier block the appointee of former President Joe Biden issued last month shortly after the White House ordered the funding freeze.

       Trump’s spending freeze, she wrote, was “irrational, imprudent, and precipitated a nationwide crisis.” She said the nonprofits that brought the challenge were likely to succeed on their claims that the freeze was unlawful.

       The issue of withholding federal funds has become a major flashpoint during the opening weeks of Trump’s second term, with other pending cases challenging the White House’s decision to suspend all foreign assistance.

       Shortly before AliKhan issued her ruling, a separate jurist in the DC federal courthouse – Judge Amir Ali – ordered the Trump administration to pay foreign aid-related money owed to government contractors and nonprofit groups by Wednesday night, amid the legal fight over the freezing of USAID and State Department funds.

       That order amounted to a legal reprimand after the plaintiffs in the cases repeatedly accused the administration of not complying with Ali’s earlier temporary restraining order that revived the funding contracts and grants that existed at the end of the Biden administration.

       Ali – also a Biden appointee – rebuffed an earlier call by the challengers for the administration to be held in contempt for its alleged non-compliance. But he issued a new order requiring, in more forceful terms, that the government pay money owed to contractors and non-profits for work that had already been completed by the February 13 order.

       Meanwhile, across the country in Washington state, a federal judge in Seattle issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday that halts Trump’s executive order suspending refugee admissions and funding.

       Judge Jamal Whitehead, who was also appointed by Biden, said that Trump’s “actions amount to an effective nullification of congressional will in establishing the nation’s refugee admissions program.”

       “While the president has substantial discretion to suspend refugee admissions, that authority is not limitless,” the judge said.

       Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day back in office, also directed a review of the refugee program and stated that resettlement should only resume if deemed to be in the “national interest” – a move critics argue is a de facto refugee ban.

       CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Angelica Franganillo Diaz contributed to this report.