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{"id":27321,"date":"2026-09-29T02:19:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-scheme-to-block-trumps-funding-cancellations\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T02:19:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:19:40","slug":"republicans-scheme-to-block-trumps-funding-cancellations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-scheme-to-block-trumps-funding-cancellations\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans scheme to block Trump\u2019s funding cancellations"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Lawmakers are fuming over President Donald Trump\u2019s latest challenge to Congress\u2019 funding power and already plotting to stop him in the future \u2014 a move that would require Republicans to buck their own party\u2019s standard-bearer.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/09\/25\/trump-declares-1b-canceled-in-pocket-rescission-in-another-affront-to-congress-funding-power-01093960\" target=\"_blank\"><u>Trump declared Friday<\/u><\/a> that he unilaterally nixed a total of $810 million across several pots of cash Congress enacted for specific programs. It\u2019s the second time in two years he has deployed the \u201cpocket rescission\u201d tactic to automatically claw back federal funds.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s now too late for lawmakers to stop that money from expiring when the fiscal year ends late Wednesday: The House has adjourned until after the midterms, and Congress relinquished a key piece of leverage by clearing a short-term funding patch weeks ago to keep government operations afloat through mid-December.<\/p>\n<p>But lawmakers in both parties are talking about ways to prevent Trump from circumventing the congressional funding process during the final two years of his presidency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re already looking at whether there&#8217;s language we can put in the next set of appropriations bills that would prohibit this from happening,\u201d Senate Appropriations Chair <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51168\" data-person-id=\"51168\">Susan Collins<\/a> (R-Maine) told reporters Monday evening. \u201cBut it&#8217;s going to take some legal work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since lawmakers need to enact another funding bill by Dec. 11 to avert a government shutdown, they could add provisions to it barring Trump from sidestepping congressional spending mandates. Or lawmakers could add similar stipulations to whatever spending measures Congress might enact next year.<\/p>\n<p>That will require bipartisan cooperation. After Trump used the same pocket rescissions tactic last year to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/08\/29\/trump-asks-congress-to-claw-back-5b-in-foreign-aid-amid-threat-of-pocket-cancellation-00535396\" target=\"_blank\"><u>cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid<\/u><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/09\/26\/supreme-court-foreign-aid-impoundment-ruling-00583052\" target=\"_blank\"><u>the Supreme Court allowed<\/u><\/a> the administration to withhold the funding until it expired. In the months that followed, Democrats repeatedly attempted to use funding bills to thwart that kind of late-stage clawback but fell short without alliances across the aisle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been trying to get that language in there. \u2026 The Republicans objected,\u201d Washington Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51219\" data-person-id=\"51219\">Patty Murray<\/a>, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations panel, told reporters Monday evening.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans who now say they are interested in blocking Trump from employing the maneuver are also thinking about the support they would need in both chambers to override a presidential veto.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow many votes does it take to bar him?\u201d said South Dakota Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/221844\" data-person-id=\"221844\">Mike Rounds<\/a>, a senior Republican appropriator. \u201cDepending upon the strategy that you&#8217;re talking about, it&#8217;s going to be a vetoable item. If that&#8217;s the case, then you&#8217;ve got to have two-thirds in the House and the Senate. So we have to talk about things we can actually get done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some lawmakers have floated the idea of seeking to bar the president from sending a rescission package to Congress in the last quarter of the fiscal year. That could stop Trump from unilaterally canceling federal cash because such a move only works in the final weeks of the fiscal year.<\/p>\n<p>Under decades-old impoundment law, the president is allowed to send Congress a request to rescind funding and must then withhold the money for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore the ask. In a legal interpretation many lawmakers challenge, Trump administration officials argue that sending a rescission request less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year ensures its expiration on Sept. 30.<\/p>\n<p>Alaska Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51218\" data-person-id=\"51218\">Lisa Murkowski<\/a>, another top Republican appropriator, described the strategy as a \u201csneaky\u201d ploy \u201cdesigned to go around Congress \u2026 where you basically just run the clock out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Congress needs to save ourselves,\u201d Murkowski told reporters Monday. \u201cI don&#8217;t think that our strategy should be just hoping for a good decision out of the courts. I think we have a role here, and it&#8217;s up to us to exercise it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEasier said than done,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Some Republicans argue that it\u2019s futile to enact another law to reinforce the limits they believe are already clearly laid out in the original impoundment law Congress enacted in the 1970s, which was designed to prevent presidents from withholding money lawmakers approve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo if we pass another law that basically says the same thing, then that&#8217;s going to change it?\u201d Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/151837\" data-person-id=\"151837\">John Hoeven<\/a> (R-N.D.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Impoundment Control Act was set up to make sure that Congress had the power of the purse and the funds were expended. The executive is interpreting it differently,\u201d he continued. \u201cThat&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t know how you resolve it without the court stepping in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51242\" data-person-id=\"51242\">John Thune<\/a> said Monday that he is also assuming \u201cthat it&#8217;s going to continue to get litigated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He wouldn\u2019t say whether he agrees with top appropriators like Collins who argue that Trump\u2019s move is against the law.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s that argument, for sure,\u201d Thune said. \u201cAnd I think as an appropriator she feels strongly that these are decisions made by appropriators and that the administration doesn&#8217;t have this authority. But again, that is probably something the courts probably decide.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><i>Jordain Carney contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers are fuming over President Donald Trump\u2019s latest challenge to Congress\u2019 funding power and already plotting to stop him in the future \u2014 a move that would require Republicans to buck their own party\u2019s standard-bearer. Trump declared Friday that he unilaterally nixed a total of $810 million across several pots of cash Congress enacted for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}