House passes $9.4 billion DOGE cuts bill
House Republicans have passed a DOGE-inspired measure to cut billions in spending, including taxpayer cash for public broadcasters NPR and PBS. A $9.4 billion package, suggested by the White House to Congress , passed through the House Thursday on a razor thin 214 - 212 vote. It will soon head to the GOP-controlled Senate.
The bill formally withdraws funding previously approved by Congress for foreign aid , public broadcasters and more. It is the first of what GOP leaders expect to be many so-called 'rescission' packages where the White House asks lawmakers to rethink their approval of certain programs. The bill specifically contains 21 budget rescissions, many identified by DOGE.
If Congress does not vote on DOGE's findings, the money won't stop flowing to the myriad programs flagged for fraud, waste and abuse by the group formerly led by Elon Musk . Over $8 billion in USAID funding for social foreign aid programs abroad, like operas for transgender people and pro-LGBT groups throughout the world, is also on the chopping block. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called the cuts to 'George W. Bush-era' global AIDS prevention programs 'reckless' during a briefing on Thursday.
But Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has said 'there is no reason for any media organization to be singled out to receive federal funds.' The bill is a major Trump priority. 'Republicans must defund and totally disassociate themselves from NPR & PBS, the radical left 'monsters' that so badly hurt our country!' Trump posted on social media last month.
Within days he signed an executive order to cease funding the 'radical, woke propaganda disguised as news,' and the rescission bill is the first step in that process. The bill passed by the House Thursday includes $1.1 billion in cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a nonprofit created by Congress to oversee the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) - outlets Trump and Republicans see as left-leaning and hostile.
'The Rescissions Bill is a no brainer, and every single Republican in Congress should vote, 'yes,'' he wrote on Truth Social. PBS, for example, received $325 million in CPB funding this year. 'NPR typically receives about 1 percent of its funding directly from the federal government, and a slightly greater amount indirectly; its 246 member institutions, operating more than 1,000 stations, receive on average 8 percent to 10 percent of their funds from CPB,' NPR said.
The White House order claims 'neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens.' Speaker Johnson affirmed Trump's effort telling reporters there's no reason any media organization should be 'singled out to receive federal funds.' Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought said in a letter to the president the rescissions would cut Green New Deal-type programs as well as equity programs and World Health Organization (WHO) funding.
House Republicans celebrated the Trump-backed bill's passage. 'Under President Trump's leadership, your taxpayer dollars are no longer being wasted. Instead, they are being directed toward priorities that truly benefit the American people,' Johnson released in a statement. 'Today's House passage of this initial rescissions package marks a critical step toward a more responsible and transparent government that puts the interests of the American taxpayers first.
Though before the vote the speaker did note there was some questions still swirling in his caucus. 'There was some concern but I think we've addressed everybody's concerns,' Johnson said confidently Thursday morning. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters this week that the upper chamber will take up the DOGE-inspired measure some time after passing Trump's Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the president wants done before Independence Day.
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The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The rise of Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's hardline immigration policy
With Los Angeles convulsed by confrontation between pro-migrant protesters and military units dispatched by Donald Trump, no figure apart from the president has loomed larger than Stephen Miller. As the man in the Oval Office, it is Trump who has absorbed the accusations of authoritarianism for usurping the powers of California's government after deploying 4,000 national guard troops and 700 active marines on to the streets of a city that is home to more undocumented immigrants than any other in the US. Behind the scenes, however, this has been the apogee of Miller's power – and an episode that illuminated his power in a White House where his influence far outstrips his misleadingly modest title of deputy chief of staff. Miller, 39, may have been the true catalyst for the volatile scenes that played out over several days in the city of his birth. As the long-term architect of Trump's years-long effort to reinvent US immigration policy, he has pressed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents to intensify efforts to arrest migrants as deportation figures fell far short of pre-election promises. At a meeting at Ice's Washington headquarters last month, Miller ordered them to skip the usual practice of compiling lists of suspected illegal migrants and instead target Home Depot, where day laborers gather for short-term hire, and 7-Eleven stores, to carry out mass arrests, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ice would aim for a minimum of 3,000 arrests a day, he told Fox News – a figure exceeding previous estimates, based on assumptions that those with criminal records would be prioritised. It also seemed to raise the risk of mistakes and wrongful arrests. Accordingly, Ice has drastically stepped up its arrest rate – and broadened the profile of those targeted. The results have been plain to see. As demonstrators took to the streets, Miller promptly raised the stakes by accusing them of an 'insurrection'. Amid the hullabaloo and expressions of outrage, Miller may allowed himself a quiet smile of satisfaction over sticking it to the city of his birth – in many ways emblematic of the progressive cultural trends despised by Trump's 'make America great again' (Maga) followers but a place where his own hardline anti-immigrant views had long provoked derision. The son of affluent Jewish parents, Miller's evolution into a race-baiting provocateur took shape in the upscale suburb of Santa Monica, where he gained notoriety as an incendiary agitator at the eponymous local high school. Video footage purportedly from the period and circulated on social media shows a bearded Miller stridently voicing his disdainful view of school janitorial staff 'Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do this,' he shouts into a microphone. The gross statement seems to have been representative of a broader canvas of toxic ideas, with racism at its core. In Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda, to date the only biography published on Miller, author Jean Guerrero recounts one episode from the future political operative's adolescence, when he suddenly ditched a close friend, Jason Islas, on the grounds of his ethnicity. 'The conversation was remarkably calm,' Islas, a Mexican American, is quoted saying. 'He expressed hatred for me in a calm, cool, matter-of-fact way.' An article he wrote as a 16-year-old for a local website expresses contempt for fellow students of Hispanic origin. 'When I entered Santa Monica High School in ninth grade, I noticed a number of students lacked basic English skills,' Miller wrote on the Surfsantamonica site. 'There are usually very few, if any, Hispanic students in my honors classes, despite the large number of Hispanic students that attend our school.' The school, he added, was one where 'Osama bin Laden would feel very welcome' – a view reflecting the then recentness of the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaida and also Miller's increasing focus on Muslims. Miller's indulgence in far-right ideas continued during his college years at Duke University in North Carolina, where he associated with white nationalist thinkers and groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, he worked with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which it defined as a 'an anti-Muslim hate group', and also with Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader who popularized the term 'alt-right' to describe groups that defined themselves through a white racial identity. After graduating, Miller moved to Washington to work in Congress, serving first as a press secretary to Michele Bachmann, then a Republican representative for Minnesota, before moving to work for Jeff Sessions, at the time a rightwing Alabama senator who later became Trump's first attorney general. It was in the latter role that his reputation as an avatar of extreme anti-immigrant agitprop became established. In 2013, helped by Miller, Sessions torpedoed a bipartisan piece of legislation that was intended to pave the way for immigration for undocumented migrants. To help sink the bill, Miller used Breitbart News, a rightwing website then headed by Steve Bannon. It would prove to be a fateful connection. The Breitbert connection also shone further light on Miller's views on race and immigration, as revealed in emails he sent to editors and reporters. They showed a preoccupation with the 1924 Immigration Act, signed by President Calvin Coolidge, which severely restricted immigration to the US from certain parts of the world on what observers say were racial and eugenics grounds. Hitler subsequently praised the legislation as a model for Germany in Mein Kampf. After Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015 - creating scandalizing headlines by demonizing Mexican immigrants as 'drug dealers, criminals and rapists', Miller took a leave of absence from Sessions' Senate office to work for him. On the recommendation of Bannon, by then Trump's campaign chief, he was installed as a speech writer, chiefly because of his focus on immigration, which had become the candidate's own signature issue. It enabled Miller to showcase his ability to channel Trump's inner self. The pair have politically inseparable ever since. Miller wrote Trump's dystopian 'American carnage' speech for his first inauguration in January 2017. As a senior policy adviser in the first Trump administration, it was Miller who was behind some of its most notorious policy initiatives. These included the so-called 'Muslim ban' on travellers from seven majority-Muslim countries and the practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border. His growing notoriety as an anti-immigration extremist drew criticism from his own relatives. In 2018, his maternal uncle, David Glosser, branded him a 'hypocrite' for ignoring the memory of his ancestors, who fled antisemitic pogroms in tsarist Russia. 'I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family's life in this country,' Glosser, a retired neuropsychologist, wrote in Politico. Miller cared little for such sentimentality. After Trump's defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Miller stuck with the former president – even while his political future initially looked doomed in the aftermath of the 6 January 2021 attack by his supporters on the US Capitol. Consequently, he grew ever more powerful in Trump's inner circle. He may have earned extra kudos by declining to exploit their relationship to win lucrative consulting contracts, instead setting up a non-profit, the America First Legal foundation. Meanwhile, he immersed himself in studying how to overcome the hurdles that stymied Trump's agenda during his first presidency. The outcome has been apparent in the blizzard of executive orders druing the restored president's first months back in the White House. Miller purposely sought to 'flood the zone' in a manner that would overwhelm the capacity of the courts – or the media – to respond. No order was more quintessentially Miller's than that issued on the day of Trump's second inauguration on 20 January, which attempted to cancel birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants. The order was challenged in the courts and is now with the supreme court after the administration challenged the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions supporting a right that is guaranteed in the US constitution. Miller's anti-immigrant zeal has at times exceeded even that of Trump. According to the New York Times, the president told a campaign meeting last year that if it was up to Miller, there would only be 100 million people living in the US – and all of them would look like Miller. The bond between the two men has grown to such an extent that Miller has been dubbed 'the president's id' in some circles. 'He has been for a while. It's just now he has the leverage and power to fully effectuate it,' an unnamed former Trump adviser told NBC. Others have called him 'the most consequential' White House official since Dick Cheney, who exercised vast influence as vice-president under George W Bush. Critics cast Miller as the root of all evil in Trump's White House. 'Stephen Miller is responsible for all the bad things happening in the United States,' NBC quoted Ben Ray Luján, a Democratic senator for New Mexico, as saying. Miller's exalted place at Trump's side was illustrated during the recent Signalgate episode – as revealed by the Atlantic, whose editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently invited into a government chat group to discuss airstrikes on Houthi militants in Yemen, whose missile attacks on Israel threatened Suez canal shipping routes. When JD Vance questioned the strikes – asking whether Trump 'is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe' – Miller unambiguously slapped the vice-president down. 'As I heard it, the president was clear: green light,' Miller said, according to the transcript. The clearest testimony to Miller's status has come from Trump himself. Asked by Kristen Welker, the moderator of NBC's Meet the Press, about speculation that Miller might become national security adviser, a usually influential White House post currently filled, albeit temporarily, by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, after the previous incumbent, Mike Waltz, was fired. 'Stephen is much higher on the totem pole than that,' Trump replied. The result is that Miller's presence is detectable in all policy areas, including at the state department, where he succeeded in having his ally, Christopher Landau, installed as Rubio's deputy. The goal is to control the flow of foreigners entering the United States, insiders have told the Guardian. At the state department, Landau has become an important liaison to officials in the consular affairs section, which has been put under the leadership of a conservative coterie of diplomats and reoriented toward policing migration. Officials from the state department have joined FBI agents on recent Ice raids aimed at tracking down unregistered migrants. Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, laments that Miller's rising star means he can 'use the powers of the federal government to unleash his fascist worldview'. '[That view] has now been transformed into the main political policy and aim of Donald Trump's presidency,' said Setmayer, who now heads the Seneca Project, a women-led political action committee. 'The demagoguery of immigration has long been at the centre of Donald Trump's political rise, and Stephen Miller's desire to make America whiter and less diverse, married with the power of the presidency without guardrails, is incredibly dangerous and should concern every American who believes in the rule of law.' Andrew Roth and David Smith contributed reporting
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
BBC examining plans that could lead to US consumers paying for its journalism
Senior BBC figures are examining plans that would lead to American consumers paying to access its journalism, as the broadcaster looks to the US to boost its fragile finances. The corporation, which is facing fierce competition from streamers and falling licence fee income, has been targeting US audiences as it attempts to increase its commercial revenues outside the UK. Executives believe the perceived polarisation of the US media, especially during Donald Trump's second term, may have created an opportunity for the BBC's brand of impartial coverage. The US is considered to be a prime target for the BBC to increase its overseas income, which has become an urgent task as the value of the licence fee has fallen significantly in real terms since 2010. Last year, the number of people paying it also fell by half a million as audiences were drawn to alternatives like Netflix and YouTube. The licence fee is now £174.50 a year. While the corporation has already relaunched its website and news app in the US, American consumers of its content are not asked to make any kind of financial contribution to the BBC's output. The Guardian understands that senior figures are keen to increase revenues coming from the country, including examining the idea of asking users to pay for access in some form. Some US broadcasters, such as the free-to-air TV network Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), already ask for donations from supporters. It is one of the potential areas of reform being considered by BBC bosses as talks over the renewal of its royal charter begin in earnest. The charter expires in 2027, with the corporation's leadership adamant that their red lines are any move to a subscription or advertising model in the UK. However, they are also under pressure to show they are attempting to increase all other areas of income. Tim Davie, the BBC's director general, is keen to increase the corporation's non-licence fee income. He is the former boss of BBC Studios, which oversees the broadcaster's commercial operations. He has said he is willing to embrace reforms that make its finances 'fairer, more modern and more sustainable'. BBC Studios has already been selling ads on its content in the US, including the website and app. The corporation's website in the US was relaunched at the end of 2023, followed by an overhaul of the corporation's app last year. The US is the BBC's largest English-speaking market and its second-largest overall, behind India. Its focus on North America has led to its digital newsroom there doubling in size, with an expansion in live broadcast programming from its Washington DC bureau. Internal figures suggest since relaunching, has had double-digit growth for nine consecutive months. The website reaches 130 million people globally, with 67 million of those in North America. Despite the focus on increasing its income, the BBC's revenues actually fell by 12% last year to £1.84bn, though it has increased significantly over the last five years. The fall last year was blamed on a slump in a post-Covid pandemic fall in TV production and commissioning, as well as investments made in
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Slain lawmaker tearful as she broke with fellow Democrats just five days before 'political assassination'
A Democrat lawmaker who broke with her party over health care coverage for illegal migrants was seen near tears just five days before she was fatally shot. Minnesota Rep Melissa Hortman was seen welling up as she cast a vote in favor of repealing eligibility for undocumented adults to access the state's subsidized health insurance scheme. She was the lone Democratic vote on Tuesday in favor of the motion to restrict access to MinnesotaCare. The vote passed by 68 to 65. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Hortman's decision did not come lightly. Following the late-night legislative session, which adjourned just before 11 pm, she appeared visibly emotional in a post-meeting interview. 'What I worry about is that people will lose their health insurance. I know that people will be hurt by that vote, and I'm...' Hortman, 55, said, with tears welling in her eyes. After briefly pausing to compose herself, she continued: 'We worked very hard to try to get a budget deal that wouldn't include that provision. 'And we tried any other way we could to come to a budget agreement with Republicans and they wouldn't have it.' Hortman's decision was met with an immediate backlash from her party and constituents as many viewed her vote as a betrayal of the progressive values she had long championed. 'This bill is cruel. It is inhumane. And it will cost real human, Minnesotan lives,' Democratic Representative Jamie Long said. 'They turned all of those things down, because all they wanted was to make sure that the 17,000 people were left out to die, that we worsen our healthcare system and that we decrease our tax revenue,' Democratic Senator Alice Mann said at a Monday press conference denouncing the repeal. Despite the criticism, those close to Hortman said her vote reflected a deep-seated belief in fiscal responsibility, as the state faces a projected $6 billion budget deficit by 2028, CBS reported. Just days later, on Saturday, Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot in their Brooklyn Park home in what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has labeled a 'politically motivated assassination.' The alleged shooter, Vance Luther Boelter, a former appointee of Walz's, posed as a police officer and was found with a manifesto naming nearly 70 individuals - including Hortman - indicating a coordinated plan to target political figures. Just before his attack on the State Representative, Boelter gravely injured State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, shooting them while they were asleep in their Champlin home - eight miles from Hortman's suburban neighborhood. An extensive search effort followed as members from local police, sheriff's deputies, and the FBI scanned the Minnesota suburb for any signs of the alleged killer who remains at large. Though authorities have confirmed the discovery of Boelter's alleged manifesto, a clear motive for the early morning shootings has not been revealed. The tragedy comes on the same day protesters were set to gather in St Paul for planned protests against President Donald Trump in events promoted as 'No Kings' demonstrations. The gatherings were timed for the same day Trump will be attending a military parade in Washington, DC, to mark the Army's 250th anniversary - and amid heightened tensions with National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles to counter anti-ICE protests there. The tragedy has since drawn widespread condemnation as leaders from both parties have denounced the violence and called for unity. Speaking at a press conference Saturday, Walz said: 'We must all, in Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence. Those responsible for this will be held accountable.' President Donald Trump added: 'Our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and the FBI, are investigating the situation, and they will be prosecuting anyone involved to the fullest extent of the law. 'Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place!' Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Republican from Cold Spring, called the attack 'evil' and said she was 'heartbroken beyond words' by the deaths of Hortman and her husband. 'With the law enforcement response ongoing and details still emerging, I will simply ask all Minnesotans to please lift up in prayer the victims of this horrific attack, as well as the law enforcement personnel still working to apprehend the perpetrator,' Demuth said in a statement. Reaction: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (pictured) called the killings 'an act of targeted political violence' while speaking at a press conference on Saturday Hortman, a lawyer and legislator for two decades, served as House Speaker from 2019 to 2025. She represented a safely Democratic district and consistently won re-election by large margins. She was instrumental in advancing major legislation in 2023, including expanding abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and mandating paid family and medical leave. In 2024, during a partisan deadlock, Hortman led a Democratic boycott in a dispute over chamber control. Once election challenges were settled, she allowed Republican Lisa Demuth to assume the speakership. She is survived by her two children. Her husband, Mark, was also killed in the Saturday attack.
