House passes Musk’s DOGE cuts to PBS, NPR and Foreign Aid

The US House approved $9.4 billion in Elon Musk’s DOGE federal spending cuts, with Republican moderates swallowing their concerns about cutting previously approved spending for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

The White House’s spending package passed the House on a narrow 214 to 212 vote with four Republicans voting against it.

It faces a more uncertain future in the Senate where moderates have voiced opposition to some of the cuts and could strip them out of the package. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate may amend the package before it votes on it in July.

The vote came amid fury among Democrats on Capitol Hill over a California senator being shoved out of a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles over immigration raids, knocked to the floor and handcuffed. Democratic members of Congress gathered on the steps of the Capitol to complain while votes were being conducted.

The bill would codify DOGE’s unilateral cuts to the US Agency for International Development and the US Institute of Peace. USAID cuts have been criticised for endangering lives in developing countries that rely on help from the US.

The measure also approves cuts of more than $1 billion for the entity that funds the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio. The cuts were designed by the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency but opponents say only Congress can take away funding that it approved.

The White House promised to send many more cut requests if this bill passed.

“It’s very important for it to pass and if it does, it will be worth the effort and we’ll send up additional packages,” White House Budget Director Russ Vought told House members last week.

Skeptics of the House tax bill, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will add $3 trillion to the national debt over 10 years, have cited making DOGE cuts permanent as key to their support.

“In DOGE we trust,” said Representative Department of Government Efficiency of California.

Cuts to rural PBS stations as well as to a successful foreign aid program to combat AIDS started by former President George W. Bush gave some Republican moderates pause but they dropped their opposition under pressure from GOP leaders.

Representative Nick LaLota of New York, who changed his vote from no to yes during the roll call, said he and Speaker Mike Johnson “had a private discussion and I got some assurances my constituents will get what they need out of this town.”

LaLota was the lead negotiator with Johnson to raise the SALT cap to $40 000 in the Trump tax bill and is counting on the speaker to make sure the Senate doesn’t lower it. SALT, he said, was part of the discussion.

Republican House members who voted against it were Mark Amodei, Brian Fitzpatrick, Nicole Malliotakis and Mike Turner.

Johnson told reporters there would be more packages codifying DOGE cuts to federal agencies.

“They’re not touching the medical side of it, the medicine side, so I feel better than what I was hearing last week, that it was going to be a total cut,” Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska said of the anti-AIDS program known as PEPFAR. Bacon flipped his no to a yes on the floor.

In the Senate, moderates Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have said they would seek to strip out the anti-AIDS funding cuts.

The bill would eliminate advanced funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR, entities which have long been targeted by conservatives for alleged liberal bias. President Donald Trump has derided the outlets as a drain on taxpayer money that he says provide unfavorable coverage to him.

The public media outlets receive a small portion of their funding from federal sources in addition to dollars from sponsors and individual donors. The networks have said that smaller stations could close as a result of the cut.

The proposal was submitted by the Trump administration under a fast-track procedure that cannot be filibustered by minority Democrats in the Senate. If the Senate doesn’t act within 45 days, the funds would be distributed.

Critics of Musk’s DOGE effort say that its unilateral cuts and mass firings are illegal under the 1974 Impoundments Control Act and the only way to legally rescind funding is to go through Congress.

Vought has said that without Congress’s approval, the administration has the right to simply refuse to spend the money, an assertion that would certainly be challenged in court.

© 2025 Bloomberg

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