Senate Approves Trump’s Bid to Cancel Foreign Aid and Funds for NPR and PBS Stations

Politics|Senate Approves Trump’s Bid to Cancel Foreign Aid and Public Broadcast Funds

The Senate early on Thursday morning approved a White House request to claw back $9 billion for foreign aid and public broadcasting, as Republicans bowed to President Trump in an unusual surrender of congressional spending power.

The 51-to-48 vote came over the objections of two Republicans, who argued that their party was ceding Congress’s constitutional control over federal funding. The Republicans who opposed the measure were Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

The bulk of the funds targeted — about $8 billion — was for foreign assistance programs. The remaining $1.1 billion was for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. The House is expected to give final approval to the package later this week, sending it to Mr. Trump for his signature.

The debate on the measure laid bare a simmering fight over Congress’s power of the purse. Since Mr. Trump began his second term, the White House has moved aggressively and at times unilaterally, primarily through the Department of Government Efficiency, to expand the executive branch’s control over federal spending, a power the Constitution gives to the legislative branch.

Top White House officials, led by Russell T. Vought, the budget office director, have sought to rein in the size of the federal government, including by freezing funds appropriated by Congress. It is part of a wider campaign to claim far-reaching powers over federal spending for the president.

This time, the administration went through a formal process by submitting what is known as a rescissions bill. Those measures are rare and seldom succeed, given how tightly Congress has historically guarded its power over federal spending. The last such package to be enacted was in 1999, under President Bill Clinton.