Senate Republicans forced through a clawback package codifying roughly $9 billion in spending reductions early Thursday, rolling back outlays on foreign aid, NPR and PBS.
The House of Representatives now has until Friday to approve the measure and send it to President Trump’s desk.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) joined all 46 present Democrats in opposing the bill. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) was absent after being hospitalized Wednesday for an undisclosed health issue.
“What we are talking about is one-tenth of one percent of all federal spending … but it’s a step in the right direction and it’s the first time we have done anything like this in 35 years,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said just before the measure passed.
The measure returns about $8 billion earmarked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and upwards of $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds PBS and NPR — something conservatives have long dreamed of cutting.
Rescissions bills, a type of legislation in which Congress pulls back previously authorized funding, do not come up for a vote often and one hadn’t cleared the Senate in over two decades.
Senate Republicans passed President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package early Thursday morning. REUTERSPresident Trump had attempted a $15 billion recission during his first term in 2018, but it fell flat due to opposition from Collins and then-Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).
Former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and George W. Bush all declined to pursue rescissions packages, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The Trump administration had first unveiled the rescission bill back in April and sent in to Congress at the beginning of June. Friday’s House deadline marks the end of a 45-day window for Congress to pass the measure.
House Republicans had passed an early form of the package early last month, but the Senate struggled over it for weeks amid various concerns about some of the cuts. Eventually, the Trump administration agreed to scrap plans to cut some $400 million from the PEPFAR program, which fights AIDS worldwide.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., arrives to vote on the package. APSenate GOPers also made modifications to the language to ensure that maternal health and food aid would be safe from cuts, while Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) got a concession to keep some funding for rural public news stations.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, praised some of the cuts to wasteful spending, but complained that “OMB has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process.”
Rescission bills are unique because they don’t require 60 votes to avoid a filibuster in the Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority.
The $9 billion rescissions bill tees up cuts to “woke” spending on foreign aid programs and NPR and PBS. REUTERS
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of S.D., walks toward his office from the Senate chamber at the Capitol on July 16, 2025, in Washington. APHowever, that has led Democrats to put Republicans on notice over the forthcoming government shutdown fight in September.
“It is absurd to expect Democrats to play along with funding the government if Republicans are just going to renege on a bipartisan agreement by concocting rescissions packages behind closed doors that can pass with only their votes, not the customary 60 votes required in the appropriation process,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) groused last week.
