Trump Takes Victory Lap as House Approves Cuts to NPR, PBS: ‘THIS IS BIG!!!’

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

House Republicans pushed through President Donald Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package, slashing foreign aid and public broadcasting funds in a late night session delayed by a political standoff over the Jeffrey Epstein files nearly derailed the vote.

The bill passed 216–213 just before a Friday deadline, with only two Republicans, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), breaking ranks. The package targets $8 billion in foreign assistance, including funds for USAID, and cuts another $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, imperiling NPR and PBS funding nationwide.

Trump took to Truth Social in the wee hours of the night to declare the advance a triumph:

HOUSE APPROVES NINE BILLION DOLLAR CUTS PACKAGE, INCLUDING ATROCIOUS NPR AND PUBLIC BROADCASTING, WHERE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR WERE WASTED. REPUBLICANS HAVE TRIED DOING THIS FOR 40 YEARS, AND FAILED….BUT NO MORE. THIS IS BIG!!!

House Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking just after midnight, called the vote a “delight” and pledged swift presidential approval. But the celebration followed hours of delay, triggered by bipartisan efforts to force a vote on releasing sealed files related to Epstein.

Democrats had rallied behind a bipartisan amendment that would require the Justice Department to release Epstein documents within 30 days.

Trump, meanwhile, sought to defuse pressure from his base by announcing he’d asked Attorney General Pam Bondi “to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.”

This came after The Wall Street Journal published a letter Trump allegedly wrote to Epstein in 2003, a document he called “fake.”