Over 200 House Democrats voted against clawing back billions in funding for PBS, NPR and foreign aid Thursday afternoon — with not a single member of the party voting for the rescissions package.
The House of Representatives voted 214 to 212 to approve $9.4 billion in cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency to public broadcasting and foreign aid. The rescissions package is the first round of DOGE cuts the House has approved thus far and comes as many congressional Republicans are clamoring to claw back the roughly $175 billion in DOGE cuts identified.
Trump lobbied GOP lawmakers to vote for the package in the final minutes leading up to the vote. The package requires a simple majority vote to pass, allowing congressional Republicans to circumvent Democratic lawmakers’ opposition.
“The Rescissions Bill is a NO BRAINER, and every single Republican in Congress should vote, “YES,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday afternoon.
Still, four GOP lawmakers including Republican Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei voted against codifying the first round of DOGE cuts, citing his opposition to proposed spending cuts to public broadcasting programs. Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Mike Turner of Ohio also voted “no” on the rescissions package.
The first rescissions package includes $8.3 billion in cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a $1.1 billion claw back in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which partly funds NPR and CBS. The spending cuts legislation is the product of close coordination with the White House to begin allowing the DOGE cuts to become permanent law, according to House Republican leadership staff.
“It’s a critical step in restoring fiscal sanity and beginning to turn the tide to removing fraud, waste, abuse from our government,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a House GOP leadership press conference Tuesday.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was the primary sponsor of the legislation codifying the $9.4 billion in DOGE cuts. He characterized the vote as following through on House Republicans’ commitment to begin getting the country’s fiscal state in order.
“These aren’t things that we can afford to spend, even if you agree with them, because it’s not money we have in the bank,” Scalise said on the House floor Thursday. “It’s all borrowed money,” the majority leader added in a reference to the country’s roughly $37 trillion debt.
House Democratic leadership slammed the spending cuts as “reckless” and argued the rescissions package unfairly targets public broadcasting.
“This Republican bill is cruel and it cuts children’s programming all across the country,” Jeffries said on the House floor while holding an Elmo puppet in his hand.
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