President Donald Trump during a meeting with Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Bahrain's crown prince, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on July 16, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Senate Republican leaders had hoped that stripping $400 million in cuts to Bush-era international AIDS and HIV prevention funding could win over all the holdouts, both public and private. But the lawmakers who voted against the bill had deeper concerns about the level of transparency during the process and the impact successful rescissions could have on Congress’ power of the purse.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she agreed with rescissions in general and supports them during the appropriations process, but couldn’t get behind the White House’s push because of a lack of clarity from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) about exactly what would be cut and how.
She said that "the sparse text" sent to lawmakers included little detail and did not give a specific accounting of programs that would be cut to hit the original $9.4 billion target.
TRUMP'S $9 BILLION CLAWBACK PASSES FIRST SENATE TEST, WHILE MORE HURDLES AWAIT
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, speaks during a news conference about high gas prices at the U.S. Capitol on May 18, 2022, in Washington. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who is leading the bill in the Senate, rebuked the duo's arguments and said that lawmakers weighing in on the rescissions package was in line with their legislative duties.
"That's exactly what we're doing," the Missouri Republican said. "I would hope that maybe what this will also do is highlight some of the wasteful spending, so when we get into the appropriations process in the next few months that we would be more keen to be focused on saving people money."
Trump’s bill, which would cancel unspent congressionally approved funding, would slash just shy of $8 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.
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Some lawmakers, like Sen. Thom Tillis, who earlier this month voted against Trump's "big, beautiful bill" over cuts to Medicaid funding, understood where the pair were coming from.
The North Carolina Republican told Fox News Digital that Collins, in particular, would be leading negotiations for an end-of-year bipartisan funding deal with Senate Democrats, and to vote in favor of canceling congressionally approved funding could hurt her ability to find a solution to keep the government funded.
"I don't think people really understand the value of your word and your consistency and your living up to commitments and how important that is to getting things done," Tillis said. "And this, I think, that's what Susan's looking at, I think Murkowski is as well, and I respect them for that."
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-who-voted-against-trumps-9-billion-clawback-foreign-aid-npr-funding