Codifying Cuts from DOGE

Fox News Radio's Ryan Schmelz joins us as the Senate debates multiple points of DOGE budget cuts - including cuts to public broadcasting. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big night last night and a long night into the
morning in the Senate. Here is the final this.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Vote the yaser fifty one, the na'ser forty eight.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
And on this vote the bill is amended as past
We've been talking about that during top and bottom of
the hour news. That's that clawback bill. And when we
and hello, Ryan Smells with Fox News Radio in Washington,
d C. Thanks for doing this today.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
When we booked this interview yesterday, they were going through
another round of votes, there was going to be a
lot of discussion about it, and that discussion ended up
lasting all night. So talk to us. How did this
thing happen?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
All right? So you had a vote on the recisions
fact that essentially through a vote rama yet again, so
a number of amendments were awkward. There actually was an
amendment that was passed here. So there's a significant clawback
that was supposed to be in here for a program
called pap Bar, which is used for formatting aids overseas.
So that was actually able to be kept in here.
So this went from about nine point four million billion

(01:01):
dollars down to nine billion dollars. So we'll see if
this has any impact on whether the House is going
to pass this or not. But pretty much this gets
sent back to the House and they're going to likely
vote on it either today or tomorrow. So you're looking
at nine billion dollars in cuts to foreign aid as
well as public broadcasting.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
So it kind of goes along the lines of the
big beautiful bill. Is there anything in it that would
lead us to believe it wouldn't make it through the
House as it heads back there.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, it did already make it through the House as
a bigger version. There was nine point four billion dollars.
It was voted on in the House. They actually had
to get a member to flip his vote towards the
end in order to get it across the finish line.
So it went down to the wire, but they were
able to pass the bill in the end and get
it over to the Senate. Now, of course, there was
a concern among the House that the Senate was going

(01:51):
to make some significant changes to this and that could
anger some of the conservative members when they send it
back over. But we'll see if these changes make any difference.
I mean, nine point four to nine billion dollars, you know,
it's still going to be a spending cut, so you know,
the votes, it's a little less politically imposing for the
moderate members who had to vote yes last time. So

(02:13):
we'll see if this changes anything, but it seems like
that the votes will likely be there.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
And these are some things that were funded that an
awful lot of Americans just didn't realize what was going on.
It's a big deal to those nonprofits or countries that
we're getting for in eight It's a big deal to
those television and radio stations that rely I on that money.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, and I think that the flooding in Texas really
didn't maybe make the arguments surrounding public broadcasting a lot
more prevalent. There was a number of members on the
Senate side and also the outside that had concerns about
it cuts the public broadcasting could put rural areas at risk,
especially when you saw the reliance on you know, either

(02:56):
public broadcastingers AM radio in general when it comes to
flash flooding situations. So I think there was a renewed
push on that and a renewed argument on that. Ultimately
it still was able to pass, but yeah, I think
that was certainly something that you wanted to watch for
going into the boat yesterday.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
And is there any sort of timeline added to this
thing that the President say it's got to be done
by the weekend, or do we just follow your lead?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
So legally, a recisions pack is requested by the White House,
and it's considered an effective tool because you can pass
it with a simple majority in both chambers. It hasn't
been tried too much, but certainly it was seen as
something that Republicans were pushing the White House to send over.
So when you send a recisions package over, you Congress

(03:42):
has about thirty days or so to act on this.
So the deadline is actually Friday to get this across
the fish line. So yes, they do have a deadline
that they're working with. And so that's why you're going
to see the House likely passes either today or tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
That is Ryan Schmells with Fox News Radio in Washington, DC. Today, Ryan,
thank you, of course, thank you