White House plans — at last — to send some DOGE cuts to Hill
President Donald Trump plans to send a small package of spending cuts to Congress next week, White House budget director Russ Vought confirmed Wednesday.
The planned transmission of the “rescissions” bill, previously relayed to POLITICO by two Republicans granted anonymity to describe the plans, comes after a long internal battle over how to formalize the cuts that have been made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative. Top GOP officials started informing some House Republicans of the plans early Wednesday.
The $9.4 billion package set to land on Capitol Hill on Tuesday reflects only a fraction of the DOGE cuts, which have already fallen far short of Musk’s multitrillion-dollar aspirations. The two Republicans said it will target NPR and PBS, as well as foreign aid agencies that have already been gutted by the Trump administration.
Speaker Mike Johnson said on X on Wednesday that the House “is eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings so we can deliver even more cuts to big government that President Trump wants and the American people demand.” He said the House “will act quickly” on the package..
Vought predicted the House would pass the package, noting that top Republicans have been weighing in on what should be included. If Congress clears the clawbacks, the Trump administration will send more requests, he said Wednesday afternoon in a Fox Business Network interview.
"So we are being very careful that we do not use our procedural opportunities in going down a path that won't lead to passage," Vought said. "But we are pretty confident that the House and Senate are going to work with us to get this thing into law."
Republicans on Capitol Hill have been growing impatient as they await the White House request, after the Trump administration confirmed more than six weeks ago that it intended to send a more than $9 billion package of proposed cutbacks.
The package itself is a tiny fraction of the $1.6 trillion in yearly discretionary spending. The White House budget office did not respond to a request for comment.
“We’ve all said that we’re anxious to act on rescissions packages and hope they find a way to send them up,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a brief interview last week before lawmakers left town for a weeklong recess.
An online pressure campaign aimed at “codifying” the DOGE cuts has gained steam in recent days, pushed by Musk-friendly Republicans including Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Many MAGA influencers on Musk’s X platform have amplified the effort.
In a CBS News interview Tuesday, Musk himself criticized the “one big, beautiful bill” backed by Trump that just narrowly cleared the House last week and is headed for the Senate. Musk said he “was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit … and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
“A bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Musk said in a clip of the interview published Tuesday night. “But I don’t know if it can be both.”
Trump’s top policy aide, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, responded to Musk in a late-night X post, noting that the cuts Musk has been seeking could not be done in the GOP megabill but instead “would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill.”
Senior Republicans informed some House GOP members that the rescissions package would finally be coming hours later.
Johnson backed Miller’s comments, saying the senior Trump aide “made an important point” that Musk has targeted cuts to funding for federal agencies, while the party-line bill Republicans are trying to clear this summer would cut spending on safety-net programs like Medicaid.
It is considered possible, however, to use the party-line bill to claw back the agency funding DOGE has targeted. But House Republicans didn’t tee up that action in the budget framework they approved last month.
Whether the forthcoming request can pass Congress is an open question: Republicans have debated possible DOGE-inspired rescissions for months, and GOP leaders have been sensitive to the fact that some pieces may have trouble passing the House, according to two other Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the matter, as well as the tight 45-day timeline for consideration set out in federal law.
Cuts to NPR and PBS, in particular, have been a hard sell in the past for some Republicans.
"This is the first I heard of this. Nebraska public media does a good job, so I’m not inclined," said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) when asked about the bill’s prospects in the House. "I'll consider it."
The Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Maine Sen. Susan Collins , has said she wants her panel to vet any request for clawbacks Trump might send, to give lawmakers a chance to make changes.
“I'm not going to prejudge a rescission package. But based on what I'm hearing, I think I would have some considerable difficulties,” Collins said in a brief interview this month.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who first pressed Musk almost three months ago to get Trump to pursue clawbacks, is frustrated that the Trump administration had not sent a package sooner.
“I’m very disappointed — not only in the White House, but disappointed in Congress,” Paul said in a brief interview last week. “If Congress can’t cut $9 billion, I think most of them should resign and go home.”
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have been wary of fielding a White House request for clawbacks this year, given that Congress rejected Trump’s 2018 request to nix $15 billion. This time, top House GOP appropriators have sought to weigh in ahead of any White House submission to ensure the package can pass.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said this month that House Republican leaders have been in “robust” negotiations with the White House over what the request will include. “We’re talking about different things, but looking at different ways to get to basically the same number,” he said.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
