Senate Delivers a Blow to Public Broadcasting

The Senate handed President Trump a major victory on spending overnight, agreeing to pull back $9 billion previously approved by Congress for public broadcasting and foreign aid. It marks the first major clawback—formally called rescission—of federal funding in decades. Most of the money, roughly $8 billion, is for foreign assistance programs, reports the New York Times. The remaining $1.1 billion is for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. Details:

• Two nays: Two Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, joined Democrats in the 51-48 vote. One Democrat, Tina Smith, missed the vote because she was hospitalized after feeling unwell, per the Hill.

• Broadcasting: Democrats say the move will badly hurt local public radio stations, particularly in rural areas, per the Washington Post. Murkowski and Collins floated an amendment to keep the CPB money, but it failed. The larger entities of NPR and PBS will survive: They receive only a small fraction of their money from the federal government.
• Saved: Notably, the final measure scraps a planned $400 million cut to the global AIDS program PEPFAR, after internal GOP pushback. The program, begun by George W. Bush, is credited with saving millions of lives.
• Message: GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune framed the cuts as a small but meaningful step. "What we are talking about is one-tenth of one percent of all federal spending … but it's a step in the right direction and it's the first time we have done anything like this in 35 years," he said, per Politico.
• What's next: The measure now goes back to the House, which is expected to approve it before the end of the week and send back to Trump for his signature.