House gives final approval to Trump's $9 billion cut to public
broadcasting and foreign aid
[July 18, 2025]
By KEVIN FREKING and MARY CLARE JALONICK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House gave final approval to President Donald
Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting
and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to
target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step
with their agenda.
The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has
successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the
White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans were
uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing
Trump or upsetting his agenda.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for
his signature.
“We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,”
said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but
about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as
investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently
canceled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had
at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as
unprecedented.
No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48, in
the early morning hours Thursday. Final passage in the House was delayed
for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to
Democrats' push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.
The package cancels about $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting and nearly $8 billion for a variety of foreign aid
programs, many designed to help countries where drought, disease and
political unrest endure.
The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks
after Republicans also muscled through Trump’s tax and spending cut bill
without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has
projected that measure will increase the U.S. debt by about $3.3
trillion over the coming decade.
"No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to
improve wasteful spending,” said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
A heavy blow to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The cancellation of $1.1 billion for the CPB represents the full amount
it is due to receive during the next two budget years.
The White House says the public media system is politically biased and
an unnecessary expense.
The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more
than 1,500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with
much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public
Broadcasting Service to support national programming.
Democrats were unsuccessful in restoring the funding in the Senate.
Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced particular concern
about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local
public stations in their state.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are "not just your news
— it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your
volcano alert.”
As the Senate debated the bill Tuesday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake
struck off the remote Alaska Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings on
local public broadcasting stations that advised people to get to higher
ground.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House
that some money administered by the Interior Department would be
repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a
dozen states.
But Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television
Stations, a network of locally owned and operated stations, said that
deal was “at best a short-term, half-measure that will still result in
cuts and reduced service at the stations it purports to save.”
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Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the conservative House Freedom
Caucus, pauses before a TV news interviews at the Capitol in
Washington, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Inside the cuts to foreign aid
Among the foreign aid cuts are $800 million for a program that
provides emergency shelter, water and family reunification for
refugees and $496 million to provide food, water and health care for
countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts. There also is a
$4.15 billion cut for programs that aim to boost economies and
democratic institutions in developing nations.
Democrats argued that the Republican administration's animus toward
foreign aid programs would hurt America's standing in the world and
create a vacuum for China to fill.
“This is not an America first bill. It's a China first bill because
of the void that's being created all across the world,” Jeffries
said.
The White House argued that many of the cuts would incentivize other
nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and
that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer.
“The money that we're clawing back in this rescissions package is
the people's money. We ought not to forget that,” said Rep. Virginia
Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Rules Committee.
After objections from several Republicans, Senate GOP leaders took
out a $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a politically popular program to
combat HIV/AIDS that is credited with saving millions of lives since
its creation under Republican President George W. Bush.
Looking ahead to future spending fights
Democrats say the bill upends a legislative process that typically
requires lawmakers from both parties to work together to fund the
nation’s priorities.
Triggered by the official rescissions request from the White House,
the legislation only needed a simple majority vote to advance in the
Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to break a
filibuster. That meant Republicans could use their 53-47 majority to
pass it along party lines.
Two Republican senators, Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine,
joined with Democrats in voting against the bill, though a few other
Republicans also raised concerns about the process.
“Let’s not make a habit of this,” said Senate Armed Services
Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who voted for the
bill but said he was wary that the White House wasn’t providing
enough information on what exactly will be cut.
Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget,
said the imminent successful passage of the rescissions shows
“enthusiasm” for getting the nation’s fiscal situation under
control.
“We’re happy to go to great lengths to get this thing done,” he said
during a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science
Monitor.
In response to questions about the relatively small size of the cuts
-- $9 billion -- Vought said that was because “I knew it would be
hard” to pass in Congress. Vought said another rescissions package
is ’likely to come soon.”
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Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, and Seung
Min Kim contributed to this report.
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