Congress

Senate GOP plots how to move Trump’s $9.4B clawbacks request

Published

12 months ago

July 9, 2025

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.

Congress

Bill Gates denied association with Epstein’s crimes in closed-door Hill interview

Published

1 hour ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Tech mogul Bill Gates told the House Oversight Committee he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s prior sex crime conviction but that he did not know Epstein was continuing to engage in misconduct at the time of their acquaintance, according to a transcript of his testimony.

In his transcribed interview with the panel earlier this month as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation, Gates recounted details of his dealings with Epstein over the years — which extended from 2011, when he was first introduced to Epstein, to 2014, when he realized Epstein would not make good on his promise to steer donors towards Gates’ philanthropic work.

“I was aware that he had a criminal conviction,” Gates said, according to the transcript. “I knew that it was of a sexual nature, but, no, I don’t think I … dug into the specifics, although I probably should have.”

Gates’ decision to shrug off the conviction from 2008 underscored the extent to which many of those who chose to associate with the disgraced financier opted to ignore potential warning signs of impropriety. It was not until more than a decade after his first brush with law enforcement that Epstein was arrested on federal sex crimes charges; he died by suicide in jail in 2019 while his case was pending.

Gates’ relationship with Epstein has drawn new scrutiny since materials released by the Justice Department revealed new details about their relationship. In one draft correspondence contained in the so-called Epstein files, Epstein appears to have written and sent to himself a letter to Gates, where he alleged that Gates asked Epstein to “delete the emails regarding [his] std” and give him antibiotics to “surreptitiously give to Melinda [French Gates].”

Gates has denied that allegation and, during his interview with the Oversight Committee, Gates questioned whether Epstein was attempting to blackmail him.

“Now that I see the January release of documents, it appears that in many cases he, at least in emails to himself, was sort of rehearsing how either he or he coaching someone else might choose to blackmail me, but none of those messages were ever sent to me,” Gates said. “You know, I never paid Jeffrey Epstein anything.”

He also said that Epstein “certainly wasn’t a friend,” and insisted he never engaged in sexual conduct or received massages from individuals introduced to him by Epstein. And despite knowledge of his 2008 conviction, Gates said he was unaware at the time of their relationship that Epstein was a registered sex offender. He also said he never visited Epstein’s island.

The Oversight Committee also on Tuesday released a transcript of its June interview with Lesley Groff, one of Epstein’s former assistants who was among those named as a potential co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement in 2007. She was never charged with any wrongdoing and, according to the transcript, recalled that law enforcement’s decision came as a surprise.

“I am not a conspirator, and I never would have agreed to this language,” she said, according to the transcript. “Their unilateral decision to label me as a potential conspirator remains my scarlet letter.”

Like others who have come before the panel, Groff claimed she was unaware of his crimes during the time of her employment and that Epstein, following his 2008 conviction, said that he was “set up.” Groff said she believed him, so she continued to work for him.

“I also saw the same VIPs continue to surround Epstein after his conviction,” she explained as a rationale for maintaining her own ties.

For instance, Groff told the Oversight Committee she “would connect phone calls” between President Donald Trump and Epstein multiple times a year.

Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing tied to Epstein, but his relationship with the financier has raised eyebrows while fueling speculation that the administration has been working to cover up its connections — including by pushing back against making the Epstein files public last year and then slow-walking their release.

The Justice Department has defended its handling of the files’ release, and Trump has maintained he broke off his relationship with Epstein years before his death.

Congress

Senate votes to halt Iran war despite Trump’s push for peace deal

Published

3 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate on Tuesday voted to cut off the U.S. military campaign against Iran, handing a fresh loss to President Donald Trump despite his attempts to convince lawmakers and the public that a deal to end the war is at hand.

Four Republicans broke ranks to help approve a resolution to block further military action unless it is green-lighted by Congress.

The war powers measure is largely symbolic — the resolution cleared Tuesday doesn’t go to the president to sign or veto. But the bipartisan 50-48 vote is a damaging milestone for the Trump administration: Both the Senate and House have now weighed in against the Middle East conflict that’s stretched on for more than 100 days. The same measure passed the House in early June after months of close calls.

Congress

Housing bill threatened in GOP elections-bill spat

Published

3 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The long-anticipated bipartisan housing bill is under threat from a Florida Republican who threatened to “shut the floor down” if House GOP leaders move forward with passing it Tuesday.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said Republicans instead need to prioritize passage of the SAVE America Act, the GOP elections bill that has been stuck in the Senate for months. Speaker Mike Johnson has scheduled a Tuesday evening vote on the housing bill in hopes of sending it to President Donald Trump for a planned Wednesday signing at the White House.

Luna posted her threat on social media Tuesday afternoon and later specified in an interview that she would oppose procedural measures teeing up GOP-backed legislation going forward if party leaders didn’t abandon their plans to hold the housing bill vote via special fast-track procedures that would effectively sideline Republican hard-liners.

Luna cannot single-handedly block those procedural votes, but she said there is “a group” of lawmakers who would join her. She separately called on Trump to veto the housing bill in a bid to force the SAVE America Act to be added to it.

Johnson plans for now to proceed with the Tuesday evening vote on the housing bill, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. If Luna and her unnamed allies follow through with their threats, they could derail a pair of appropriations bills set for House consideration this week and potentially freeze the floor indefinitely given the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

“I have been telling them,” Luna said of her complaints to GOP leaders.