Senate Republicans agreed to make changes to President Donald Trump’s multi-billion-dollar clawback package to help win over holdouts, but by shrinking the overall size of the cuts in the process.
Lawmakers left a meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought on Tuesday afternoon and announced that about $400 million in proposed cuts to a global AIDS and HIV prevention program would be stripped from the legislation, dropping the total clawbacks in the president’s rescission package to $9 billion.
The original proposed slashes to the Bush-era President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) rattled some Senate Republicans, who warned publicly and privately that they would not support the package if the cuts remained.
But lawmakers agreed to carve out the spending cuts with an amendment, and Senate leadership is hopeful that the change will corral enough holdouts to support the bill during a test vote later Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., can only afford to lose three Republicans during the partisan process.
Thune said after the meeting that there was “a lot of interest among our members” in seeing the PEPFAR cuts removed, and expressed hope that if lawmakers in the upper chamber could advance the bill, then House Republicans would be open to the modification.
The top Senate Republican is eyeing the first test vote on the bill later on Tuesday evening, with another vote to kick off 10 hours of debate shortly after.
The changes to PEPFAR also come after Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., got guarantees that roughly $10 million would go toward rural radio stations on reservations, which was his primary concern, with cuts now redirected toward the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.
However, whether the changes are enough to sway key holdouts, like Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, remains to be seen.
A senior official defended PEPFAR cuts, stating they target LGBTQ education, not core care. The White House seeks more burden-sharing by partners and continues investing in prevention. With a Friday deadline looming, lawmakers race to pass the bill or risk losing control over billions in funding held under a 45-day window.
