Congress
House passes public media, foreign aid clawbacks after Epstein scramble
Six months into Donald Trump’s presidency, Congress finally codified a small piece of the hundreds of billions of dollars his Department of Government Efficiency pinpointed as “waste.”
House Republicans gave final approval just after midnight Friday to Trump’s proposal to claw back $9 billion in public media and foreign assistance, greenlighting the Senate’s changes to the measure that will bake in proposed DOGE cuts to public media and foreign aid. The package now heads to the president’s desk.
The House’s 216-213 vote to clear the Senate-amended package comes less than 24 hours after the Senate voted to tweak the administration’s original proposal that would have cut an additional $400 million from the global AIDS fighting program, PEPFAR. Senate Republicans also added language vowing that certain food assistance programs would be protected, and staved off impacts to other food aid, maternal health, malaria and tuberculosis-related initiatives.
“This bill tonight is part of continuing that trend of getting spending under control. Does it answer all the problems? No. Nine billion dollars is a good start,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Two House Republicans, Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voted against the measure for the second time, having also opposed it when the House first voted on the package last month. But Republican Reps. Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Mark Amodei of Nevada flipped to “yes,” heartened by the Senate deal to strike the proposed cut to AIDS-prevention efforts.
The package was advanced in the House under a fast-track process: Instead of voting directly on the bill, lawmakers triggered passage by voting for a procedural measure that’s typically used to set up debate. It meant lawmakers would not have to take an additional vote.
It also helped House Republicans move quickly to pass the bill, which needed to be shipped to Trump’s desk by Friday night or the rescissions request would expire and the administration would be forced to spend the money as Congress originally intended.
This rescissions package is the first to succeed in more than 30 years, and it’s already causing trouble for the annual appropriations process just 10 weeks before the Sept. 30 deadline to reach a funding deal or launch a government shutdown.
In the Senate, where spending bills need 60 votes to pass, Republicans will need Democratic support to approve even a short-term funding patch to avoid a lapse in federal operations. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer already warned in a letter to his caucus earlier this month of consequences if Republicans continued to go it alone on government funding.
In the House, the chamber’s top Democratic appropriator, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, said Republicans’ approval of the clawbacks package was tantamount to “a rubber stamp on the Trump administration’s stealing” from the American people.
“This rescissions bill is another effort to subvert the Congress’ power of the purse,’” she said.
Meanwhile, White House budget chief Russ Vought said Thursday morning that another rescissions package is likely coming “soon” to Capitol Hill, setting up another chance for Republicans to vote to cancel funding passed on a bipartisan basis – and further inflame partisan tensions.
House Republicans also teed up a procedural measure earlier Thursday evening to trigger passage of a non-binding resolution expressing support for the release of documents related to late-disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
GOP leaders are promoting the measure, to be considered at a later date, as a release valve for rank and file lawmakers who wanted to vote on the matter but not actually go on record in favor of making materials public.
It was the culmination of a daylong scramble that delayed eventual passage of the rescissions bill.
Nicholas Wu and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
Congress
Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.
One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.
“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.
A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.
The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.
The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.
The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.
“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”
Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.
He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,
Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.
Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.
“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.
Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.
Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”
Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.
Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.
“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”
Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.
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