Senate Republicans are removing $400 million in proposed funding cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program from a rescissions package ahead of a deadline at the end of this week.
The decision was announced after GOP senators met on Tuesday with White House Director Russell Vought regarding the measure designed to codify spending reductions in line with recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/1945193756086378516" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> reporters there was &#8220;a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the PEPFAR issue,&#8221; resulting in a &#8220;small modification&#8221; that leaves the rescissions package, which seeks to slash funds for programs Republicans deem to be wasteful and ideologically driven, at roughly $9 billion.
The GOP-led House narrowly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-doge-cuts-targeting-foreign-aid-npr-and-pbs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> the rescissions package in June following a request by the Trump administration. It sought to claw back $9.4 billion in &#8220;reckless spending,&#8221; as House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) told The Daily Wire, by targeting foreign aid projects and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funds to NPR and PBS.
Under the Impoundment Control Act, lawmakers in Congress were given 45 days to act on the request, and it requires only a simple majority in the House and Senate — meaning the filibuster threshold can be ignored. The deadline is Friday, meaning the Senate and the House must both pass the revised measure in the next couple of days.
House Republicans had been urging the Senate not to make any changes, but they could end up approving the slimmer version, particularly after the White House <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5402273-white-house-accepts-pepfar-exemption/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> gave the Senate its blessing to remove the PEPFAR section.
Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) responded in particular to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who said she wanted to strike the PEPFAR cuts from the rescissions package, contending the program was a success in saving millions of lives.
&#8220;All of that spending” is a far cry from PEPFAR’s original mission, to combat &#8220;the AIDS epidemic in Africa when it first started,&#8221; Harris <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-republicans-urge-senate-colleagues-to-pass-rescissions-package-with-sense-of-urgency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Daily Wire.
In addition, a senior Trump administration official told The Daily Wire on Tuesday that &#8220;limited&#8221; program cuts to PEPFAR took aim at &#8220;LGBTQ education and capacity building — not core life-saving care.&#8221;
Democrat senators and the independents who caucus with them are likely to vote in unison against passing the measure, leaving Republicans and their <a href="https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">slim</a> majority unable to afford more than a couple GOP defectors. Vice President JD Vance might be needed for a tie-breaker.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) <a href="https://x.com/SenatorRounds/status/1945145431916233064" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> on Monday that he came around on the rescissions package after the Trump administration helped find money that could be reallocated to continue grants for tribal broadcast services that offer &#8220;potentially lifesaving emergency alerts&#8221; in his state.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune

Senate Republicans Drop ‘AIDS Relief’ Cuts From Rescissions Package

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The White House on Tuesday rebuffed media claims that the Trump administration was gutting funding for life-saving HIV/AIDS treatments. 
A senior administration official told The Daily Wire that cuts to PEPFAR, global health funding provided by the United States to combat AIDS and HIV, were not impacting essential life-saving services. The official noted that there were some targeted cuts to ideological aspects of the program. 
&#8220;America remains the most generous country in the world because President Trump has a humanitarian heart, and we urge other nations to dramatically increase their humanitarian efforts,&#8221; the official told The Daily Wire. &#8220;PEPFAR continues to support lifesaving HIV testing, care and treatment, and prevention of mother to child transmission services approved by the Secretary of State.&#8221;
The official&#8217;s comments come as some media outlets, such as NPR, have claimed that the Trump administration is gutting AIDS relief.
The official noted that 86% of PEPFAR funding was going to direct treatment activities, and that over 18 million people were still benefitting from the program across 40 countries. The official added that there have been some &#8220;limited cuts&#8221; to &#8220;LGBTQ education and capacity building&#8221; aspects of the program, but &#8220;not core life-saving care.&#8221;
At the same time, the White House called for other countries to step up their contributions to fighting HIV/AIDS.
&#8220;We’re already working with countries and other partners to ensure that they shoulder a greater share of the burden where they can. We continue to make targeted investments in mother to child prevention, and other key areas of focus,&#8221; the official told The Daily Wire. 
The official also said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has approved $1.3 billion in funding to fight HIV/AIDS, of which at least 60% will go towards the purchase of anti-retrovirals and other commodities.
&#8220;But Secretary Rubio has kept life-saving and high-impact aid programs ongoing, with cuts targeting wasteful DEI programs, capacity building, waste and bloat at the United Nations and left-wing NGOs and other activities that saved no lives,&#8221; the official added. 
The official said the prioritizing of &#8220;high-impact lifesaving&#8221; aid would serve &#8220;as a catalyst for private and partner country investment.&#8221;
&#8220;President Trump’s peace through shared prosperity approach will ultimately lead to higher standards of living and greater impact from U.S. engagement around the world,&#8221; the official noted.

President Trump Departs White House For Pennsylvania

White House Says Media Pushing Fake News About Global HIV/AIDS Funding

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Hollywood star Woody Harrelson torched Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and said Fauci has done some “extraordinary evil s**t” and knows it.
During his recent appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” <a href="https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1893765243815526484">podcast</a>, the 63-year-old actor and host both said they were hopeful that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has been sworn in as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services — could right some of the wrongs they attributed to Fauci.
“Bobby (RFK Jr.), I really hope he’s able to do some good because he’s certainly a man on a mission,” Harrelson said. “And a man who cares deeply. And I think really heroic how much he stood up for things that he didn’t need to talk about … he just took one arrow after the other over it.”
Rogan admitted he once bought into the “propaganda” against Kennedy and said that he too used to think RFK Jr. was a “kook.” He said then he read his book “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (Children’s Health Defense)” and changed his mind.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
WOODY: “AZT was known to be a highly toxic, really ineffective drug. And of course that was the one they picked … That k*lled friends of mine … Fauci did some extraordinarily evil sh*t, and he knows what he did.” <a href="https://t.co/nvxmaukv3X">pic.twitter.com/nvxmaukv3X</a>
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1893464627368919086?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
&#8220;If all these things [RFK] is saying about Anthony Fauci during the AIDS crisis, if that&#8217;s not true, why is he not getting sued?&#8221; the podcast host said. 
&#8220;I would sue the f**k outta him if he lied about me and said that I was vaccinating foster kids with experimental drugs that were killing them,” he added.
&#8220;The Hunger Games” star criticized the fact that “Fauci was able to get these principal investigators from like all these respectable colleges and put them on these committees&#8230;&#8221;
“He [Fauci] started with the AZT thing [to fight AIDS],” the three-time Oscar nominee said. “And, you know, AZT was known to be a highly toxic, really ineffective drug, and of course, that was the one they picked.”
“And so they started using that again, and I don’t know how many people that killed,” he added. “That killed friends of mine. AZT was very toxic and they finally had to yank it. And now they use different chemical cocktails, but like, Fauci did some extraordinarily evil s**t. And he knows what he did.”
The podcast host pointed out that the Matthew McConaughey movie “Dallas Buyers Club” dealt with the AIDS epidemic — and said that the villain in the movie was based on Fauci.
“That was about people trying to seek alternative treatments to deal with AIDS … that’s Fauci, that’s AZT,” Rogan said. “Magic Johnson got on AZT and it was killing him and he got off of it.”
Harrelson pointed out that Johnson is still alive, suggesting it was because he stopped taking the drug.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woody-harrelson-explains-why-he-no-longer-carries-a-cell-phone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woody Harrelson Explains Why He No Longer Carries A Cell Phone</a>

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Senate Republicans Drop ‘AIDS Relief’ Cuts From Rescissions Package

White House Says Media Pushing Fake News About Global HIV/AIDS Funding

‘He Knows What He Did’: Woody Harrelson Torches Fauci On Rogan Podcast