Another GOPer Calls Out Trump’s ‘Pocket Rescissions’ Gambit For What It Is
This is your TPM evening briefing.
The other Republican who sometimes counters President Trump — and then still votes for things that advance his agenda, like the sweeping Medicaid cuts in Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill this summer — is slamming the White House for lawlessly withholding federal spending that’s been authorized by Congress.
In a tweet, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who has said previously that she believes so-called “pocket rescissions” are illegal, reminded the Trump administration that authority to determine federal spending lies with Congress. She also suggested that sending over another rescission request so close to the end of the fiscal year would ruin any bipartisan appropriations progress that has already been made. Here’s her statement in full:
I strongly object to the Office of Management and Budget’s unlawful attempt to pursue a nearly $5 billion pocket rescission. Congress alone bears the constitutional responsibility for funding our government, and any effort to claw back resources outside of the appropriations process undermines that responsibility.
The fact is, advancing the final appropriations bills and avoiding a government shutdown will require a great deal of hard work and collaboration when Congress resumes session next week. These unilateral actions by OMB only threaten the good bipartisan work that has been done in committee and on the floor, and risk throwing the entire process into chaos.
As TPM reported on Friday, the Trump White House finally made good on its threat to try to use pocket rescissions as a loophole through which it can unilaterally cut federal spending it doesn’t like without Congress’ approval. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency set the stage for such a showdown when it began freezing, rescinding or cutting federal spending that Congress had appropriated earlier this year. The Trump White House then attempted to legitimize some of that constitutionally backwards federal-program slashing by sending over some DOGE cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting in the form of a rescissions request earlier in the summer.
While Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) both spoke out against that July vote to cut billions in spending that Congress had already authorized, Republicans were able to pass the package through both chambers of Congress without Democrats. The two were the only Republican senators to vote against the legislation, which only needed 50 votes to succeed.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has been threatening for some time that he may try to legitimize more of DOGE’s rampage via a pocket rescissions request — a move that the Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly declared illegal. As my colleague John Light explained in The Weekender on Saturday, the move represents an escalation of the Trump White House’s power grab over Congress’ authority to appropriate federal spending because the Trump administration now claims the power to cut the spending whether Congress approves it or not.
When a rescission request is sent to Congress from the White House, it automatically freezes the spending for 45 days and the White House must automatically begin spending the money again if Congress doesn’t approve the rescission. In this case, there are only a few weeks left of the fiscal year, so the funds are not going to be spent regardless of what Congress does. Collins alluded to the backwards attempt to seize Congress’ power of the purse in her statement calling out the Trump White House’s $4.9 billion rescission request on Friday.
“Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law,” Collins said.
As Murkowski noted in her Tuesday statement, there’s a chance that this last-ditch power grab from the White House might blow up any bipartisan spending negotiations that have been underway for some time. Democrats have been hoping to secure some assurances from Republicans in exchange for any votes they give to help keep the government open. Some Democrats have argued they want the sweeping Medicaid cuts that Republicans passed into law this summer repealed in exchange for their votes. Other Democrats have been urging their colleagues to refuse to help Republicans keep the government open without assurances that the executive branch will spend funding as appropriated.
Friday may have changed any headway Republicans were making.
“Trump is rooting for a shutdown,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted Friday. “He knows he has created a huge problem because now any budget deal with Republicans isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. He’s not even pretending to follow the law.”
Johnson Tries to Spin Any Shutdown in Dems’ Direction
As Congress gets back into town after its lengthy August recess this week, the sticking points of the spending fight to come will begin to take shape. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is getting out ahead of things in his attempt to blame Democrats if the government shuts down when the fiscal year ends at the end of the month, despite the fact that his party has the majority in both chambers and if Republicans ultimately decide to push forward with another short term continuing resolution, it’ll be members of his conference who will likely be the least cooperative. If Congress is able to pass actual appropriations bills, those will have to clear the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate, meaning Republicans will have to negotiate with Democrats, and likely offer some concessions around Trump’s ongoing legislative branch power grab, to get their support.
“The ball will be in their corner,” Johnson said of Democrats.
More, per Politico:
House GOP leaders can afford to lose only a handful of members on their side of the aisle and pass legislation without help from Democrats. Asked whether Republicans would agree to Democrats’ demands to roll back spending cuts to health care programs contained in the GOP megabill as a way to bring Democrats to the table, Johnson said, “no.”
Trump Says He Is Not Dead
President Trump was forced to engage with conspiracy theories that were swirling around social media over the long holiday weekend that he was dead.
During a press briefing Tuesday he called the conspiracy theories — which were rooted in speculation about his health amid a lot of unexplained hand bruising — “fake news” before complaining about former President Joe Biden and arguing he had a very “active” weekend that involved posting “a number of Truths, long Truths, so I think pretty poignant Truths” on the internet.
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