The U.S. Capitol in Washington

The Senate passed a White House-endorsed plan to cancel $9 billion in federal funding for foreign-aid programs and public media after the Republican-led chamber blocked attempts to slim down the package in a marathon overnight voting session.

The measure was approved 51-48 at 2:30 a.m. on Thursday, largely along party lines, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining Democrats in opposition. The bill now heads to the House, which must pass it by Friday or the executive branch is supposed to release the funding.

Republican senators defeated a series of revisions sought by Democrats and some Republicans to restore funding in the package that aims to write into law cuts identified by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency effort.

The bill effectively asks lawmakers to claw back funding they previously doled out, including $7.9 billion from foreign-aid programs. The plan also would rescind $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—the organization that oversees government funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service—defunding it for the next two fiscal years.

Republicans have long criticized NPR and PBS for what they see as a liberal bias and questioned funding them with taxpayer money. Trump called the CPB a “monstrosity” in a social-media post last week and threatened Republican senators that he would withhold his endorsement from anyone who opposed the cuts.

During the late-night session, an effort by Murkowski and Collins failed to salvage most of the funding for public broadcasting through an amendment that would have reduced the cuts to the CPB from $1.1 billion to $8.3 million. The amendment was defeated, 47-51. Murkowski and Collins were the only Republicans to vote “yes,” alongside Democrats.

Ahead of the vote, senators had seen news reports of a powerful offshore earthquake near Alaska’s southern coast, which led to brief tsunami warnings. Murkowski, in a social-media post, said residents and tourists in her home state “were able to evacuate and reach higher ground thanks to federal tsunami advisories relayed through local public broadcasting stations.”

“Some colleagues claim they are targeting ‘radical leftist organizations’ with these cuts, but in Alaska, these are simply organizations dedicated to their communities,” Murkowski wrote.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said the Senate was doing its part to cut waste out of the budget, calling it a “small but important step toward fiscal sanity.” The $9 billion in cuts, however, represent about one-10th of 1% of the roughly $7 trillion federal budget. Most of the federal government’s spending is on Social Security, Medicare and related health programs, as well as interest on the debt, all of which weren’t part of the discussions.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) warned that the bill would gut local news, defund rural radio stations, and make America less safe. “And they’re doing it all to continue funding tax breaks for billionaires,” Schumer said. That is a reference to the Senate’s approval earlier this month of a Trump-backed tax-and-spending bill that is projected to add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit in the coming years.

Schumer and other Democrats also complained that the Republicans were ceding Congress’s power of the purse to the executive branch by acquiescing to cut programs lawmakers had previously funded, turning the Senate “into a subservient rubber stamp for the executive, at the behest of Donald Trump.”

Republican senators did reach an agreement on Tuesday to save $400 million of funding for the Pepfar HIV/AIDS relief program. Funding for maternal health, malaria and tuberculosis also will be explicitly protected by new language added, people familiar with the matter said.

Several Senate Republicans had raised concerns about funding for Pepfar, rural public media and global hunger programs. Most voted for it anyway.

“I suspect we’re going to find out there are some things that we’re going to regret…And I suspect when we do, we’ll have to come back and fix them,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), in a speech explaining his support for the package.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune

The bill had narrowly cleared two procedural hurdles in Senate votes late Tuesday after three Republicans joined all Democrats to oppose it—Collins, Murkowski and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Vice President JD Vance broke the tie, bringing the vote to 51-50.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R., S.D.) said Tuesday he had reached an agreement with the White House for the administration to redirect $9.4 million in funds from the Biden administration’s climate, healthcare and tax law, the Inflation Reduction Act, to support 28 Native American radio stations in nine states. That includes $800,000 to support four stations in his state of South Dakota, Rounds said. He had withheld his vote amid concerns that canceling funding for the CPB might harm tribal radio stations.

Loris Taylor, chief executive of advocacy group Native Public Media, said in a letter to Rounds that the proposal was “not only structurally impractical, but it also introduces uncertainty into an already underfunded sector, threatening the stability of Tribal media outlets that communities rely on daily.”

Sen. Jerry Moran (R., Kan.), meanwhile, helped protect a food-aid program used by farmers. A provision added to the measure makes clear that none of the funds rescinded can affect U.S. commodity-based food aid, including the Food for Peace program and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and the Child Nutrition Program.

It is rare for Congress to accept rescissions requests from the White House. The last time it happened was in 1999.