AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Senate is taking up a package of $9 billion in spending cuts requested by the Trump administration. The cuts target foreign aid programs and public broadcasting. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says Republicans are using this bill to shrink the size of the government.
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JOHN THUNE: Clearly, this is something that all of us believe is a priority. When you've got a $36 trillion debt, we have to do something to get spending under control.
CHANG: NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh has been covering this and joins us now from the Capitol. And just a note - no NPR executive has had a hand in this coverage, right, Deirdre?
DEIRDRE WALSH, BYLINE: Exactly right.
CHANG: OK, so the House approved the White House request for these cuts last month. Have Senate Republicans made any changes to what the House approved?
WALSH: Yes, they have. The original request from the Trump administration proposed $9.4 billion in cuts. But one program that senators from both parties objected to cutting was the $400 million cut in the program called PEPFAR. That's the global public health program set up by President George W. Bush that provides resources to combat HIV and AIDS.
CHANG: Right.
WALSH: The program has been very successful, saving millions of lives. So Senate Republicans worked with the administration, decided to pull it out of the package, and they're now moving forward with legislation that cuts a total of 8 billion to other foreign aid programs and about 1 billion in cuts for public media.
CHANG: Yeah, and I saw that some Senate Republicans were pushing to preserve federal funding for public broadcasting in their home states. Did they get any of those changes in?
WALSH: They did. As you said, there's been this group who have been raising concerns about the impact of cuts, mostly in rural areas. South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds specifically argued that radio stations that serve Native American populations in his home state needed to be supported. He essentially negotiated a side deal with the administration and says they agreed to reprogram about $9 million in money from a program at the Department of Interior and use that money to go to 28 radio stations in nine states that serve Native American communities.
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MIKE ROUNDS: I had concerns specifically about the impact on these radio stations that are in rural areas, with people that have basically very few other resources, and that, to me, they got caught in the crossfire on public broadcasting.
WALSH: But this bill still eliminates two years of federal funding that Congress already approved earlier this year for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It's unclear whether this deal that Rounds got is going to satisfy other Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. They still want federal money for public radio in their home states to be preserved. For their part, Democrats slash - you know, blasted Republicans for slashing funding for both foreign aid and public broadcasting. New Mexico Democratic Senator Ben Ray Lujan, who just got back from visiting floods in his home state, argued that the cuts in this bill will impact communities across the country who rely on public media for dealing with natural disasters.
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BEN RAY LUJAN: But it's local AM radio or public broadcasting that are still able to carry a signal to warn you to get out of your home. It's almost time for you to move. Get your stuff ready. You need to get out of there. Something's coming.
CHANG: OK, well, Deirdre, with these changes to the House version, do you think this bill will actually pass in the Senate?
WALSH: You know, Republicans I talked to this afternoon seem pretty confident they're going to get there. They're still negotiating, but they're planning to move ahead with a procedural vote later tonight to begin debating the bill. Republicans can only lose three votes and still be able to pass it - three Republican votes. They're using this process to get around a filibuster in the Senate. All Democrats are expected to vote no. If the Senate approves this, the House will have to vote on it, and the deadline is this Friday at midnight. If Congress fails to approve the bill, the money has to be released.
CHANG: That is NPR's Deirdre Walsh. Thank you, Deirdre.
WALSH: Thanks, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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