House inches forward on Trump's rescissions request

Washington — House Republicans are inching toward a vote on a package to claw back $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding, after efforts to release files related to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein stalled movement on President Trump's request.

The House is facing a Friday end-of-day deadline to pass the bill, which is known as a rescissions request, after which the money must be spent as originally intended.

Before a floor vote, the package had to get through the House Rules Committee, where there was heated debate on Democrats' demands for a vote on an Epstein-related measure. All but one Republican on the committee voted against similar amendments when they were first presented earlier this week, further fueling criticism from those who want documents on Epstein released.

The controversy has divided Mr. Trump's base since his administration released a memo earlier this month saying that Epstein had no "client list" and died by suicide in 2019. Some Republicans have pushed for more disclosures in the Epstein case, though Mr. Trump has called the controversy a "hoax."

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, defended the GOP committee members on Thursday afternoon, saying they were unfairly taking heat.

"They're trying to stick to their job and move the procedural rules to the floor so we can do our work and get the rescissions done for the American people," Johnson said.

Democrats wanted a vote on a bipartisan measure introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California that would force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files within 30 days.

Instead, Republicans voted against the effort and offered a resolution that carries no legal weight to make the files public.

Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, noted that there would be no recourse if the Trump administration did not comply with the non-binding resolution.

"This resolution they're offering is a cover vote and I'll be surprised if they even bring it to the floor," McGovern said.

Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the committee chair, said it would be up to the majority leader whether the resolution receives a floor vote.

As the committee debated the release of the files, Mr. Trump announced that he asked Attorney General Pam Bondi "to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval." The request came after the Wall Street Journal published a letter Mr. Trump allegedly wrote to Epstein for his birthday in 2003, which the president called "fake."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would not say Thursday afternoon whether he planned to delay a final vote past the deadline by exercising his right under House rules to speak for as long as he'd like, a power he used to make a record-breaking speech earlier this month.

"I expect that I will speak longer than a minute," the New York Democrat quipped.

Jeffries ended up speaking for about 15 minutes.

After an hourslong vote series, the Senate narrowly passed an amended version of Mr. Trump's rescissions request earlier Thursday, sending it to the House, which approved a larger package of cuts last month.

The Senate version is about $400 million smaller after the Trump administration agreed not to cut funding for a global AIDS prevention program to alleviate some of the concerns of Republican dissenters.

The Senate's version targets roughly $8 billion for foreign assistance programs, including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. The package also includes about $1 billion in funding cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports public radio and television stations, including NPR and PBS.

Some senators also worried about the implications for rural areas, where many residents depend on public radio stations for emergency alerts. The administration promised to find funding elsewhere to alleviate the cuts to the rural stations to win over critics.

Though all but two Republican senators ended up supporting final passage, some said they had reservations about doing so, especially because they had not received details from the administration about how the broader cuts would impact specific programs.

"I suspect we're going to find out there are some things that we're going to regret," Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said Wednesday before voting for the package.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska both criticized Congress, saying it was undermining its budget oversight role by ceding to the White House's, and arguing that any funding cuts should be sorted out during the annual appropriations process. Collins and Murkowski both voted against the package.

Jaala Brown contributed to this report.