The Senate on Tuesday voted to take up legislation to claw back $9 billion for foreign aid and public broadcasting, signaling that the Republican-led Congress is poised to acquiesce to President Trump in a simmering battle with the White House over spending powers.
The 51-to-50 vote came after Republican leaders agreed to a handful of concessions to win the votes of holdouts who were uneasy with the proposed rescissions. G.O.P. leaders said on Tuesday they would strip out a $400 million cut that Mr. Trump requested to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, a move that the White House signaled it would not contest.
Even then, some Republican senators refused to support a move that they said would relinquish their constitutional power over federal spending, forcing their leaders to summon Vice President JD Vance to the Capitol to break a tie and ram the legislation through a pair of procedural votes.
“We’re lawmakers; we should be legislating,” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday night announcing her opposition to the package. “What we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, ‘This is the priority. We want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.’ I don’t accept that.”
She was joined by two other Republicans in siding with Democrats in opposition to advancing the measure: Senators Susan Collins of Maine, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Senate Republicans are hoping to approve the package as early as Wednesday. That would send it back to the House, which passed the bill last month but would still need to give it final approval by Friday for the cuts to be enacted.
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