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Senate Republicans blasted through Democratic and internal opposition to pass President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package early Thursday morning.
The final vote tally was 51-48, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining every Democrat in voting against it. The package will now be sent to the House, which has until Friday to pass it.
The $9 billion rescissions bill tees up cuts to “woke” spending on foreign aid programs and NPR and PBS that Congress previously approved. Republicans have pitched the bill as building on their quest to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
SENATE MARCHES TOWARD PASSING TRUMP’S $9B CLAWBACK BILL AFTER DRAMATIC LATE-NIGHT VOTES
President Donald Trump smiles as he meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House April 14, 2025, in Washington. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that it was a mission shared by the GOP and Trump, whose Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) identified many of the cuts included in the package.
“I appreciate all the work the administration has done in identifying wasteful spending,” Thune said. “And now it’s time for the Senate to do its part to cut some of that waste out of the budget. It’s a small but important step toward fiscal sanity that we all should be able to agree is long overdue.”
The president’s rescissions package proposed cutting just shy of $8 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.
TRUMP’S $9 BILLION CLAWBACK PASSES FIRST SENATE TEST, WHILE MORE HURDLES AWAIT
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., joined by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., (L) and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, at the U.S. Capitol on September 29, 2021, in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty…
