Trump Budget Director Confirms First Targets For Clawing Back Spending

The White House plans to send its first rescissions package of the year to the Congress next week, President Donald Trump’s budget chief announced on Wednesday, aiming to gut programs that Republicans view as being wasteful and partisan.

Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said during an interview on Fox Business that the request to claw back funds appropriated by Congress will be delivered to the House on Monday or Tuesday, whenever the lower chamber is back in session.

The package will focus on removing “waste and garbage” for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and foreign aid, Vought told host Larry Kudlow.

Vought noted the package will also target NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). NPR just sued Trump over his executive order for ending “taxpayer subsidization” of outlets presenting “biased and partisan” news coverage. In particular, the directive seeks to end funds to NPR and PBS through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CBP).

🚨 @WHOMB Director @RussVought47 confirms that President Trump’s first rescissions package — clawing back wasteful spending in USAID, foreign aid, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and NPR — will be sent to Congress next week. pic.twitter.com/wBZp1lciat

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 28, 2025

Axios reported that the rescissions package is expected to cover $9.4 billion and, once delivered, lawmakers will have 45 days to approve it. Vought noted how the measure can be passed by the House and Senate with a simple majority, meaning the filibuster will not be in play.

“We’ve had good conversations to make sure they knew it was coming,” Vought said. “They had some input as to some of the changes that could be made to make it something that could pass the House. And we’re excited for that to occur next week.”

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Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has listed rescissions as being one of two actions the House will take based on findings from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, led by Elon Musk, in addition to using the appropriations process to “swiftly implement” Trump’s proposed 2026 budget.

“When the White House sends its rescissions package to the House, we will act quickly by passing legislation to codify the cuts,” Johnson said in a Wednesday post on X.

During his appearance on Fox Business, Vought also defended the version of Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” narrowly passed by the House last week after Musk warned it “undermines” DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts because it risks further increasing the federal deficit, which has already surpassed $1 trillion in recent years.

“We have been in the process of getting the most important priority done, and that is the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ … we are in the business of actually passing a law,” Vought said. “It has $1.6 trillion in actual, mandatory savers for the first time ever.”