LoginTrump wants Congress to slash $9.4B in spending now, defund NPR and PBS
A sign for the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, is seen on its building headquarters on Feb. 18, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration sent its first spending cuts request to Congress on Tuesday, asking lawmakers to swiftly eliminate $9.4 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and various foreign aid programs.
The request for what are called rescissions allows the White House budget office to legally freeze spending on those accounts for 45 days while the Republican-controlled Congress debates whether to approve the recommendation in full or in part, or to ignore it.
The proposal calls on lawmakers to eliminate $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. That means NPR and PBS would lose their already approved federal allocations, if the request is approved by Congress.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May seeking to block the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from providing funding for NPR and PBS, leading to two separate lawsuits citing First Amendment concerns.
In the rescissions request, Trump wants to cut $8.3 billion from foreign aid programs, including the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a global initiative to combat HIV/AIDS, and the African Development Foundation.
The proposal is the first of several that will seek to codify efforts undertaken by U.S. DOGE Service and billionaire Elon Musk before he left his official role as a special government employee.
White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter accompanying the request that it “emphasizes the need to cut wasteful foreign assistance spending at the Department of State and USAID and through other international assistance programs.”
“These rescissions would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests, such as funding the World Health Organization, LGBTQI+ activities, ‘equity’ programs, radical Green New Deal-type policies, and color revolutions in hostile places around the world,” Vought wrote. “In addition, Federal spending on CPB subsidizes a public media system that is politically biased and is an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”
GOP leaders in Congress appear likely to hold floor votes on the request, which only needs a simple majority to pass the Senate, avoiding the need for Democratic support to get past the 60-vote legislative filibuster.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote in a statement the House “will act quickly on this request.”
“This rescissions package reflects many of DOGE’s findings and is one of the many legislative tools Republicans are using to restore fiscal sanity,” Johnson wrote. “Congress will continue working closely with the White House to codify these recommendations, and the House will bring the package to the floor as quickly as possible.”
But Republican leaders could run into problems with centrist Republicans in each chamber, especially those on the Appropriations committees, which approved the funding in the first place.
The GOP holds especially narrow majorities in Congress, requiring the support of nearly every one of the 220 Republicans in the House and the party’s 53 senators.
Republican leaders may need to negotiate what exactly gets written into the rescissions bill if too many moderate Republicans raise objections to cutting off the funding.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote in a statement the committee “will 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.”
Foreign aid, public media take hits
The request calls for lawmakers to make cuts to dozens of foreign aid programs, including $500 million out of $4 billion for certain global health programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“This proposal would not reduce treatment but would eliminate 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 request states. “This rescission proposal aligns with the Administration’s efforts to eliminate wasteful USAID foreign assistance programs.”
The rescissions request proposes Congress eliminate $400 million of the $6 billion for global health programs that seek to control HIV/AIDS, which OMB writes “would eliminate only those programs that neither provide life-saving treatment nor support American interests.”
The request asks lawmakers to eliminate $2.5 billion of the $3.9 billion they approved for development assistance, which “is intended to fund programs that work to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies, but in practice, many of the DA programs conflict with American values, interfere with the sovereignty of other countries, and bankroll corrupt leaders’ evasion of their responsibilities to their citizens, all while providing no clear benefit to Americans.”
The proposal calls on lawmakers to eliminate more than $1 billion in funding across two fiscal years for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the administration wrote “would be used to subsidize a public media system that is politically biased and an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”
President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Patricia Harrison wrote in a statement the organization “is firmly committed to ensuring that funding for public media provides local communities with accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news and information, and we take seriously concerns about bias that have been raised.
“The path to better public media is achievable only if funding is maintained. Otherwise, a vital lifeline that operates reliable emergency communications, supports early learning, and keeps local communities connected and informed will be cut off with regrettable and lasting consequences.”
President and CEO of PBS Paula Kerger wrote in a separate statement that the “proposed rescissions would have a devastating impact on PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities, particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets.
“Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.”
Kerger wrote that PBS would seek to keep its funding by demonstrating “our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, in providing educational, enriching programs and critical services to all Americans every day for free.”
NPR CEO Katherine Maher wrote that Congress enacting the rescissions “would irreparably harm communities across America who count on public media for 24/7 news, music, cultural and educational programming, and emergency alerting services.”
“Public safety in every community across the nation could also be affected. NPR, as the entity chosen by public radio stations to operate the nationwide Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS), receives Presidential-level emergency alerts and distributes them across the country within minutes,” Maher wrote. “In the event of a national attack or emergency, communities no longer served by a station would not receive this lifesaving, early warning and civil defense alert.”
More details
A summary of the proposal shared with States Newsroom by the White House budget office ahead of its official release later in the day says the funding cuts would affect programs that sought to reduce xenophobia in Venezuela; support electoral reforms and voter education in Kenya; fund voter identification in Haiti; provide electric buses in Rwanda; broadcast the longtime PBS children’s show “Sesame Street” in Iraq; and strengthen the resilience of LGBTQ global movements.
The proposal would also cut off funding to Harvard University to conduct research models for peace and to New York University to analyze democracy field experiments in South Sudan, according to the OMB summary.
PEPFAR would no longer have funding for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia, or for services for “transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks” in Nepal, according to the OMB summary.
Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a vocal supporter of PEPFAR, said during a brief interview that he was told “that PEPFAR had some cuts, but that the basic core mission was continued.”
Cassidy — chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — said his staff was carefully reviewing the request and knows he cares “about this deeply.”
The rescissions request, which asks lawmakers to claw back already approved funding, is different from the president’s budget request, which proposes spending levels for thousands of federal programs for the upcoming fiscal year.
Both are merely proposals, since the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse in Article I, Section 9, Clause 7.
Timing on Senate floor vote unclear
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday that lawmakers in that chamber will begin reviewing the rescissions request this month, but didn’t detail exactly when he’d hold a floor vote.
“Another item high on our list to begin work on in June is a rescissions package the White House intends to send Congress this week,” Thune said. “The administration has identified a number of wasteful uses of taxpayer dollars and we will be taking up this package and eliminating this waste. We’ll make that a priority.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement released Monday that “Trump is looking to go after PBS and NPR to settle political scores and muzzle the free press, while undermining foreign assistance programs that push back on China’s malign influence, save lives, and address other bipartisan priorities.”
“If Republicans choose to go along with this rescission package, they will follow Trump at their peril,” Schumer and Murray wrote. “The power of the purse is one of Congress’s most fundamental Constitutional responsibilities. Democrats will not allow Republicans to play games with the budget.”
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said during a brief interview Tuesday that he plans to “carefully” evaluate the rescissions request.
West Virginia GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Tuesday that she would go over the proposals once it officially arrives from the White House to determine whether she can support moving it across the floor.
“It could be a fight. It could not be a fight,” Capito said. “We just don’t know.”
The House Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right members led by Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, posted Monday its members hope the administration sends additional rescissions requests as quickly as possible.
“Passing this rescissions package will be an important demonstration of Congress’s willingness to deliver on DOGE and the Trump agenda,” the Freedom Caucus statement said. “While the Swamp will inevitably attempt to slow and kill these cuts, there is no excuse for a Republican House not to advance the first DOGE rescissions package the same week it is presented to Congress then quickly send it for passage in the Republican Senate so President Trump can sign it into law.”
