UPDATE (June 12, 4:10 p.m. ET): The House narrowly passed the rescissions package, 214-212, with all but four House Republicans voting in favor. The legislation now heads to the Senate.
Congress will soon face a vote that goes far beyond dollars and cents. It’s a vote about who lives, who dies — and whether the United States still recognizes the difference.
Republican lawmakers have largely distanced themselves from the Trump administration’s unlawful cuts to lifesaving foreign aid. And while they have done nothing to stop them, they could at least claim the cuts were done without their input.
Now President Donald Trump is asking them to approve a rescissions package that would retroactively cancel grants that gave food to the hungry and medicine to the sick, building goodwill for the United States around the world.
If they approve the package, Congressional Republicans will have joined hands with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the rogue unofficial group until recently helmed by billionaire Elon Musk, to take back money Congress had already appropriated to programs to feed and care for children around the globe.
These deaths were all preventable. Indeed, Congress already tried to prevent them.
To be clear, this vote comes with consequences. An analysis by a Boston University infectious-disease mathematical modeler and health economist found that Trump’s cuts in foreign aid have already resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 children and 96,000 adults — a death toll that claims another 103 lives every hour.
These deaths were all preventable. Indeed, Congress already tried to prevent them when it passed decades worth of spending bills that included funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the agency that, for decades, has delivered U.S. global leadership in the form of vaccines, health care, food aid, maternal care and HIV treatment.
That all came to an end when the Musk-led DOGE effort essentially dismantled USAID from within, terminating thousands of contracts, cutting overseas operations, and freezing essential programs. Musk didn’t hide his contempt when he labeled USAID a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists” and declared it was “time for it to die.”
If congressional Republicans approve the rescissions package, they will have enshrined into law the slashing of $9.4 billion in already-approved federal spending targeted by DOGE. More than $8 billion of that comes from the State Department and USAID.
In short, it would be cruelty codified into law.
In the Peruvian Amazon, USAID helped Indigenous communities fight deforestation and illegal mining. When hundreds of mobile health teams and other services were suspended in Afghanistan, some 9 million people were affected, according to a U.N. spokesperson. In Ukraine, USAID delivered clean water systems and trauma care.
In crisis after crisis, from Ebola to famine, USAID has been on the frontlines. It is especially crucial for emergency food assistance — supporting efforts such as the distribution of fortified peanut paste to millions of malnourished children through nonprofits like MANA Nutrition. In this case, the damage is done. In June, USAID withdrew its support.
One of the most targeted programs is the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the landmark, bipartisan Bush-era global AIDS relief effort that has saved more than 25 million lives since 2003. The plan has since become a cornerstone of American global health diplomacy — touted by Republicans and Democrats alike as a moral triumph.
But today, amid a wave of Trump-era isolationism and budgetary cynicism, even PEPFAR is on the chopping block. Some Republicans lawmakers — aware of the program’s legacy and their own party’s role in creating it — have begun to raise concerns, but the question is whether that will be enough to save it.
But today, amid a wave of Trump-era isolationism and budgetary cynicism, even PEPFAR is on the chopping block.
But there is even more at stake. The rescissions package would also cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR and PBS through hundreds of local public TV and radio stations around the country.
The Trump administration has cast this as striking a blow against liberals, but it’s actually the opposite. On Monday, Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada and Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York issued a warning about the impact of cutting federal funds for public broadcasting, warning that “rescinding this funding would also isolate rural communities.”
But as with anything related to U.S. politics these days — words are not enough.
It is a damning reflection of this political moment that these cuts are coming as the president continues to spend tens of millions of dollars on a grotesquely expensive military parade to ostensibly celebrate him. This isn’t about fiscal responsibility. The $10.5 billion in savings from cuts to USAID and PBS does nothing to offset the additional $2.3 trillion Trump will add to our national deficit or address the 10.9 million people who will become uninsured if his megabill passes in its current form.
This is cruelty masquerading as cost-cutting. It’s about the GOP’s obsession with winning the culture wars and clamping down on a free press.
With Democrats expected to oppose the package, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes and still push the measure over the finish line.
But Republicans are keeping mum — or speaking about it anonymously. Is that the courage their constituents voted for?
Every member of Congress who votes for this package is voting to turn temporary cruelty into permanent consequence. These are not just budget lines, but human lives. The toll this "deal-making" president has already inflicted is unthinkable. Let’s not cement it into our nation’s legacy.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch “The Weeknight” every Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC.
