Senate sends Trump’s DOGE cuts package to the House as deadline to pass it closes in
CNN
President Donald Trump is one step closer to having Congress officially sign off on a slice of his Department of Government Efficiency’s spending cuts after Senate Republicans agreed TK DATE to cancel $9 billion in funding to foreign aid and public broadcasting.
President Donald Trump is one step closer to having Congress officially sign off on a slice of his Department of Government Efficiency’s spending cuts after Senate Republicans agreed in the early hours of Thursday morning to cancel $9 billion in funding to foreign aid and public broadcasting. The package now returns to the House for final approval, where it must pass by a Friday deadline mandated under the budget rules Republicans are using to move the package without Democratic votes. If successful, it will then head to Trump’s desk, where he’s expected to sign the partisan push to claw back federal dollars that Congress had already sent out the door. While most Senate Republicans firmly embraced the spending cuts and are pressing for more, some within the party raised concerns over the White House push, arguing that it set a harmful precedent undermining congressional authority. Two Republicans opposed the measure in the Senate: Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The final tally was 51-48. Roughly $8 billion will be taken from congressionally approved foreign aid programs as part of the White House’s efforts to dismantle the US Agency for International Development. Another $1.1 billion comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR and PBS. The Senate passed the bill after an extended voting session on amendments that stretched from Wednesday afternoon into the early hours of Thursday morning and lasted over 12 and a half hours. Democrats offered a number of amendments attempting to strike provisions from the legislation, but none were adopted. Trump and his team have spent weeks working to convince Republicans to support their plan. Officials were forced to make at least one major concession ahead of the final Senate vote, bowing to a demand from multiple GOP senators to spare funding for PEPFAR, the Bush-era program to fight global AIDS.
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