Congress
Senate GOP plots how to move Trump’s $9.4B clawbacks request
Senate Republicans are eyeing changes to the White House’s $9.4 billion request to claw back funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting as leadership plans to bring it to the floor next week.
Majority Leader John Thune can only lose three GOP senators and still get the House-passed bill to the floor and ultimately across the finish line — and the South Dakota Republican is openly acknowledging that it’s TBD what the bill looks like when and if it gets there.
That’s because Republican senators are still talking about potential tweaks to slim down the cuts President Donald Trump is seeking for global health programs and AIDS prevention efforts around the world, as well as local radio stations and public TV programming valued back home.
Senate GOP leaders have little time to spare: By the end of the day on July 18, the request Trump sent to Capitol Hill last month will expire, meaning the administration will be forced to spend the money as lawmakers originally intended if Congress doesn’t act.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine, as well as South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, are among the Senate Republicans exploring the idea of amending the package to protect funding for public broadcasting, along with programs to stop the spread of AIDS.
“Whatever form it takes, we can’t lose these small-town radio stations across the country that are literally the only way to get out an emergency message,” Rounds told reporters Tuesday night.
Rounds noted, however, that White House budget director Russ Vought committed to working to protect funding for public radio stations if Congress clears the package clawing back a total of $1.1 billion from public broadcasting.
Alaska Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski have also signaled that they want changes to the bill. Sullivan said Tuesday that he’s still seeking votes on amendments to the package but didn’t detail what those might entail.
Collins already said weeks ago that she would seek changes to the package, but she also is declining to elaborate on how much funding she is aiming to protect.
“I have already made clear I don’t support the cuts to PEPFAR and child and maternal health,” Collins said in a brief interview Tuesday night.
Further complicating any attempt to make changes to a rescissions package in a narrowly divided Republican Senate, any amendments to the president’s request to nix funding would have to be narrowly tailored to comply with chamber rules. So senators are now seeking guidance from the Senate parliamentarian on what tweaks would be allowed.
“I’m trying now to determine what amendments I might be able to vote for,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said in a brief interview Tuesday night. “So until I know the scope of the capabilities, I’d rather be in a position of keeping my options open.”
Senate Republicans are also banking on House Republicans swallowing any changes they make to the rescissions package — similar to their strategy on Trump’s megabill — after the lawmakers across the Capitol narrowly passed the president’s clawbacks request last month without changes.
“We’ll see where it goes,” Thune told reporters Tuesday, adding that while he hasn’t done a hard vote count yet he is assuming Republicans will at least be able to get it onto the Senate floor.
Asked if he was worried about Collins or other moderates voting against the bill, Thune demurred, suggesting those conversations were still to come.
“We’ll have a lot of conversations about it, and we’ll get a better sense of where our members are,” Thune said.
Some Republican senators who generally back the package also support attempts to amend it.
“Right now, I’m lean yes,” Sen. Thom Tillis said Tuesday night about passage of the package.
But the retiring North Carolina senator said some of his Republican colleagues have also made persuasive arguments in favor of protecting money for PEPFAR, the global AIDS reduction campaign Trump is seeking to slash by $400 million.
“I’m open to it, if it makes the rescission better,” Tillis said of amending the package.
If Congress rejects the package or doesn’t clear it through both chambers by the July 18 deadline, Trump would be forced to spend the money and prevented from requesting the same cuts again.
But if the package passes, the White House will finally be able to send back to the Treasury a small slice of the billions of dollars in proposed funding cuts made in recent months. That includes reductions Elon Musk dictated as head of the Department of Government Efficiency before leaving his Trump administration role.
White House allies are also predicting a political blowup from Trump if the Senate falls short. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said that if the bill fails, the White House “will go nuts” and that it would be an “embarrassment to the president.”
“I think if the Republicans in the United States Senate do not pass the rescission package, after all the rhetoric about reducing spending, then they should hide their head in the bag, and I think the White House will provide the bag,” Kennedy added.
In 2018, Senate Republicans, who had a slightly narrower majority, rejected an effort during the first Trump administration to revoke congressionally approved spending. Trump officials say they tailored their latest request to make it as politically palatable as possible, but they’ve also flirted with leapfrogging Congress and trying to rescind funding on their own if the Senate falls short.
Cassandra Dumay, Mia McCarthy and Calen Razor contributed to this report.
The chair of the House Agriculture Committee said he’s not willing to “accept bad results” as a tradeoff for the benefits of advancements in artificial intelligence — a direct rebuttal to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“As someone who practiced health care for 28 years, I’m never willing to accept bad results. I think we just need to do our best,” Rep. G.T. Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, told reporters Monday.
He was responding to Altman’s comments to Decoded by Blue Light News that people “should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”
Pressed further on whether he agreed with Altman’s premise, Thompson replied, “No, I think we have to work harder to prevent any bad things from happening.”
Altman’s comments come in the wake of increased panic over the risks of catastrophic destruction from AI, with many industry leaders and experts arguing that guardrails are needed on the technology to prevent it from spinning out of human control.
Pressure is building on Congress to regulate the rapidly-advancing technology, but lawmakers are divided over whether the AI industry needs federal regulation or if it’s capable of governing itself.
The executives of major AI labs and tech companies gathered at the White House last week to discuss solutions with President Donald Trump, who believes overregulating AI will have national security repercussions. The group ended up signing a “morally binding” AI accord that critics say won’t do enough to prevent a worst-case scenario.
Thompson noted Monday he believes that AI will bring “tremendous solutions,” specifically in regards to finding cures for health issues like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. But he also said AI has to be led with “principle” — comparing it to how he addressed digital assets in a bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, which he worked on as chair of the Agriculture Committee.
“The first principle is ‘do no harm.’ So we need to protect consumers, and that means, I think, building some guardrails — some guidelines — to do that,” Thompson said. He added that the second principle is to “foster innovation.”
“I think AI has a lot to do with that,” he added. “I don’t think AI works without RI: Real Intelligence.”
LE SUEUR, Minnesota — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is no “consensus” yet on advancing a bill establishing permanent daylight saving time even as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Republicans to pass it.
Thune addressed the matter in a Monday interview after Trump used his Truth Social account multiple times over the weekend to rail against the legislation, known as the Sunshine Protection Act — going so far as to post the personal cell phone number of one of its GOP opponents, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues,” he said. “It’s something we’re having conversations about but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet.”
While Trump singled out Cotton for scrutiny, Thune made clear the opposition to the permanent daylight saving time proposal — which would lead to very late winter sunrises in some parts of the country — ran deeper than one senator.
Cotton has publicly voiced opposition to the proposal for year, citing, among other things, the fact that children in his state would be going to school in the dark for part of the year.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) voiced similar objections Monday to reporters in the Capitol, saying he was mindful of “safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours.”
Thune, who spoke during a campaign swing in Minnesota with GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, has himself opposed previous daylight saving bills. He said Monday that “a lot of it depends on where you are in the country” and that “your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has aligned himself closely with Trump, is among the lawmakers who have been pushing to get the bill through the Senate. He recently told POLITICO, “I’m going to make sure it gets passed this year.”
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
Democrats have pulled back some of their ads in North Carolina’s Senate race, days after the top Senate Republican super PAC paused its future spending in the state.
WinSenate, a group affiliated with the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, has removed roughly $1.1 million in North Carolina ad buys this week, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The group still has roughly $18.8 million in future reservations through Election Day.
“Senate Majority PAC is committed to seeing this race through to victory, and will continue to make spending decisions based on how to best build a strong Senate majority,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
The move, combined with the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund’s decision to pause future spending, are a signal that both parties are shifting resources amid an ever-expanding Senate map. Democrats are increasingly confident in their North Carolina Senate nominee, Roy Cooper, as he continues to hold a sizable lead in public polling over Republican Michael Whatley — but some privately say states like Michigan and New Hampshire need more resources.
Meanwhile, multiple Republican groups, not just SLF, have retreated from the state in recent weeks, effectively deciding that it’s no longer worth the money to boost Whatley’s campaign.
The Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action left North Carolina off its $22 million list of future spending across key Senate contests, and Old North Action removed $6.5 million in ad reservations last month.
The Cooper campaign, however, is still treating the race as competitive, pointing to North Carolina’s closely divided electorate and the fact that President Donald Trump won the state in each of the past three presidential elections.
“North Carolina is a truly 50/50 state and Democrats haven’t won a US Senate race in 18 years. We can’t take anything for granted or our eye off the ball,” said Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to the Cooper campaign. “DC is broken and we’re going to continue to run this race like we’re ten points down to ensure North Carolinians get the change they desperately need.”
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