U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., holds up an Elmo toy while the chamber debates a bill that would eliminate previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to public radio and television stations, including the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, which airs "Sesame Street." (Screen shot taken from House Clerk website livestream.)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House narrowly passed legislation Thursday that would revoke $9.4 billion in previously approved funding for public media, including National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as foreign aid, though the bill’s future in the Senate amid a strict timeline is uncertain.
The 214-212 mostly party-line vote marks just the third time in several decades the House has approved a bill to claw back funding that lawmakers formerly agreed to spend. President Donald Trump sent the rescissions request that led to the House bill to the Republican-controlled Congress earlier this month.
Republican Reps. Mark Amodei of Nevada, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Mike Turner of Ohio voted against approving the bill along with all of the chamber’s Democrats.
Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon and New York Rep. Nick LaLota, both Republicans, switched from opposing to supporting the bill after Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with them on the floor as the vote was held open.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., contended during floor debate that pulling back the funding is the right place to start, but said the GOP will seek to do much more in the months and years ahead.
Scalise said PBS and NPR should have to compete against other media organizations without grant funding from the federal government.
“There is still going to be a plethora of options for the American people,” Scalise said. “But if they’re paying their hard-earned dollars to go get content, why should your tax dollars only go to one thing that the other side wants to promote? Let everybody go compete on a fair basis.”
Maine Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree said every state in the country would feel the impact of eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“I rise today in strong opposition to the reckless attack on public media contained within this rescissions bill and millions of Americans who rely on and treasure their local public television and radio stations,” Pingree said.
Efforts to defund CPB, she said, were the result of Trump’s “agenda against the free press and his authoritarian desire to control the media.”
Public media would lose $1.1 billion
The seven-page bill would rescind all funding that Congress approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for fiscal years 2026 and 2027, a total of $1.1 billion.
CPB, which provides grants to public radio and television stations throughout the country, is one of the few programs that receives an advanced appropriation. So the funding elimination envisioned in the House bill would take effect starting on Oct. 1.
The legislation revokes more than $8 billion from several foreign aid programs run by the U.S. State Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Florida Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, chairman of the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, said during an interview Wednesday there were extensive talks between GOP lawmakers and the Office of Management and Budget before the Trump administration officially submitted this rescissions request.
But Díaz-Balart cautioned there would need to be substantial pre-negotiations ahead of any future rescissions requests for programs within his annual funding bill.
“This rescission package — which I’ve had communication with OMB on — if this passes, we can move forward,” he said. “Now, if you’re talking about a potential for future additional rescissions, that could potentially create a problem and tie the president’s hands when it comes to dealing with adversaries or helping allies.”
Díaz-Balart said that OMB officials hoping to make any additional rescissions requests on foreign aid would need to engage in “a level of coordination that is so detailed, so intense to make sure that nothing comes forward that could potentially hurt the president’s ability to really do the America First agenda internationally.”
Florida Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel, ranking member on the State-Foreign Operations spending panel, said during floor debate Thursday the bill was an attack on American values and posed a threat to national security.
“It’s not charity, it’s strategy,” Frankel said of foreign aid. “Don’t take my word for it, military leaders from both parties have warned us for years — if we fail to lead with soft power, we’ll end up paying in blood, bombs and more boots on the ground.”
“Cutting foreign assistance will deepen desperation, fuel extremism, push fragile societies toward collapse and when that happens we all pay the price,” she added. “Refugee crises surge, diseases spread, trade routes shut down, our troops and diplomats face greater danger and our homeland security is weakened.”
First of many requests
The House vote took place just one week after the Trump administration sent lawmakers the rescissions request, the first of many proposals the White House budget office plans to submit.
The $9.4 billion cancellation proposal represents a small fraction of the roughly $6.8 trillion the federal government spends each year.
The recommendation said some of the foreign aid should be cancelled because it supported “programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and ‘equity’ programs.”
The rescissions request allows the Office of Management and Budget to legally freeze funding on the programs listed for 45 days while lawmakers decide whether to approve the recommendation as is, amend it, or ignore it.
The House and Senate must agree to approve the same rescissions bill before mid-July for the changes to take effect. Failure to reach a bicameral agreement before then would require the Trump administration to spend the funding and block the president from requesting the same cancellation for the rest of his term.
Rescissions requests are rare since Congress typically negotiates spending levels on thousands of federal programs in the dozen annual spending bills that are then signed by the president.
The first Trump administration proposed rescissions in 2018, but the bill never made it through the Senate.
The last time Congress actually approved rescinding funding was in 1992 during the George H.W. Bush administration, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
More action in the Senate
The Senate will need to take up the bill before mid-July if it wants to approve any of the spending cuts, though several GOP senators told States Newsroom during brief interviews Wednesday ahead of the House vote they may amend the package, which would require it to go back to the House for final approval before the 45-day clock runs out.
Rescissions bills come with a vote-a-rama in the Senate, giving Republicans and Democrats the chance to call up as many amendments as they want for a floor vote. The GOP holds a 53-member majority, so four or more Republicans opposing any element of the bill would likely lead to its removal.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she will give the rescissions bill “careful consideration.”
In a statement released earlier this month just after the White House sent the request to lawmakers, Collins wrote the committee would “carefully review the rescissions package and examine the potential consequences of these rescissions on global health, national security, emergency communications in rural communities, and public radio and television stations.”
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, said he’s mostly supportive of the rescissions request, though he didn’t rule out offering an amendment to restore full funding for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, often called PEPFAR.
“I think I’ll be okay with most of it. I’m concerned about PEPFAR. I’ll have to look at that,” Graham said.
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chairwoman of the spending panel that oversees the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said she’s planning to evaluate the bill once it arrives.
“We’ve got all these other things I’m thinking about. I haven’t even focused on it,” Capito said, referring to ongoing negotiations over the party’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said she’s going to “try to” ensure the Corporation for Public Broadcasting keeps its funding.
“I’m a supporter of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It’s a lifeline for many of my small, rural communities,” Murkowski said
Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, a senior appropriator, said he’s “trying to figure out a strategy of how to deal with” both the foreign aid and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provisions once the bill comes over from the House.
“I’m looking at both of them to see what the right outcome should be.”
‘The risk of living in a news desert’
Both PBS and NPR released statements following the House vote, pledging to do their best to keep their funding intact.
Katherine Maher, NPR president and CEO, wrote in a statement the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is essential to the organization.
“Americans who rely on local, independent stations serving communities across America, especially in rural and underserved regions, will suffer the immediate consequences of this vote,” Maher wrote. “If rescission passes and local stations go dark, millions of Americans will no longer have access to locally owned, independent, nonprofit media and will bear the risk of living in a news desert, missing their emergency alerts, and hearing silence where classical, jazz and local artists currently play.”
Paula Kerger, president and CEO at PBS, wrote in a separate statement the “fight to protect public media does not end with this vote, and we will continue to make the case for our essential service in the days and weeks to come.
“If these cuts are finalized by the Senate, it will have a devastating impact on PBS and local member stations, particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets. Without PBS and local member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.”
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