The Senate succeeds in Trump’s foreign aid reductions, despite the republican defections

Although the Senate Republicans have succeeded in their mission to pass the scratch of claws by President Donald Trump, not all members of the conference have set out on board.

Only two Republicans, meaning. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, joined each Democrat in the Senate to vote against the package of $ 9 billion oriented towards foreign aid and public funding of public dissemination.

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President Donald Trump at a meeting with Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the unfulfilled Crown Prince of Bahrain in the White House oval office in Washington on July 16, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz / CNP / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Republican leaders of the Senate had hoped that the deactivation of $ 400 million in cups in international AIDS and Bush HIV prevention could earn all retained, public and private. But the legislators who voted against the bill had more in -depth concerns about the level of transparency during the process and the impact of successful cancellations could have on the power of the handbag.

Collins, which chairs the Senate credit committee, said that it agreed with cancellations in general and supported them during the credits process, but could not put itself behind the push of the White House due to the lack of clarity of the Management and Budget Office (OMB) on what would be reduced and how.

She said that “the sparse text” sent to the legislators included few details and did not give a specific accounting of the programs that would be reduced to reach the initial objective of $ 9.4 billion.

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Senator Susan Collins addresses the press of Washington Crossing Inn on November 6, 2022 in Washington Crossing, in Pennsylvania. (Mark Makela / Getty Images)

“For example, there are 2.5 billion dollars in the development assistance account, which covers everything, basic education, water and sanitation, food security-but we do not know how these programs will be affected,” she said.

Murkowski demanded a return to the legislation and seemed to warn that the legislators simply took steering orders from the White House rather than doing their own work.

Murkowski and Collins were also concerned about the discounts of public broadcasting, in particular at the Rural Radio stations. The two tried to make changes to the bill during the A-Rama vote. Collins finally decided not to bring its amendment, which would have reduced the total amount of the bills of the bill to the north by $ 6 billion on the ground. However, Senator Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Has always made the change for a vote. And Murkowski offered an amendment that would have considerably reduced the reductions in public broadcasting.

The highest vote for the bill occurred a few hours after tsunami warnings struck Alaska, and Murkowski argued that federal warnings had been relayed by local public broadcasting.

“Tsunami’s warnings are now canceled, but the warning to the American Senate remains in force,” she said. “Today every day, we have to vote these erroneous cuts on public broadcasting.”

However, the two attempts to modify the bill failed to pass.

Their decision to go against the package has let its head scratch. Senator Ron JohnsonR-Wis., Argued that the cuts represented less than a tenth of the total budget of the federal government.

“It should be a chip, ok? I have confidence in (director of the OMB) Russ Vought,” he said. “I have confidence in the Trump administration. They will not cut things that are important expenses.”

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Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, speaks at a press conference on high gas prices at the American Capitol on May 18, 2022, in Washington. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

Senator Eric Schmitt, R-MO., Who directs the bill in the Senate, reprimanded the arguments of the duo and declared that the legislators weighing on the package of cancellations were in accordance with their legislative functions.

“This is exactly what we do,” said the Missouri republican. “I hope perhaps what it will do is also highlighting some of the unnecessary expenses, so when we will enter the credits process in the coming months, we would be more impatient to focus on the economy of people’s money.”

Trump’s bill, which would cancel the funding not approved by Congress, would run a little less than $ 8 billion from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and more than a billion dollars of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the funding arm supported by the government for NPR and PBS.

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Some legislators, such as Senator Thom Tillis, who, earlier this month, voted against the “big and beautiful bill” of Trump on the cups to finance Medicaid, understood where the pair came from.

The Northern Carolina Republican told Fox News Digital that Collins, in particular, led negotiations for a Bipartisan finance agreement at the end of the year with the Senate Democrats, and vote in favor of the cancellation of funding approved by the Congress could harm her ability to find a solution to maintain the funded government.

“I don’t think people really understand the value of your word and your consistency and your life to commitments and how important it is to get things done,” said Tillis. “And that, I think, that’s what Susan looks at, I think Murkowski is also, and I respect them for that.”