The White House is trying to assure House Republicans wary of plans to slash global AIDS funding that the administration will spare some prevention programs that would have been on the chopping block.
The promises come as GOP leaders race to shore up votes for a $9.4 billion spending cuts package ahead of a scheduled Thursday vote. The planned cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a signature effort of former President George W. Bush that is credited with saving millions of lives, have been especially problematic for many Hill Republicans.
In recent days, White House officials have conveyed to GOP leaders that they will not only maintain life-saving treatments under PEPFAR but will also — in response to concerns from more than a dozen House Republicans — preserve some prevention programs as well, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the private assurances.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s whip team spent Monday evening on the House floor counting votes on the overall “rescissions” package, which targets public broadcasting and broader foreign aid efforts, in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars in overseas AIDS funding. The whip team conveyed the altered plans in conversations and text messages with lawmakers. Some Republican lawmakers have pressed the White House directly about Trump’s request to nix funding for fighting AIDS around the globe.
White House budget director Russ Vought told appropriators last week that the Trump administration wants to take “an analytical look” at “the prevention itself” and instead fund “life-saving treatment” for people with AIDS. But Vought said the White House is still planning to scale down PEPFAR and other programs.
“It is something that our budget will be very trim on,” Vought said of funding AIDS prevention work, “because we believe that many of these nonprofits are not geared towards the viewpoints of the administration. And we’re $37 trillion in debt. So at some point, the continent of Africa needs to absorb more of the burden of providing this health care.”
Lawmakers are also raising concerns about deep cuts across public media — targeting PBS and NPR, as well as their local affiliates.
Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei, a top GOP appropriator, said in a brief interview Tuesday morning that he spoke with Majority Whip Tom Emmer on the House floor Monday evening about trying to spare local PBS affiliates from deep funding cuts. Amodei said he is pressing for more information about how local affiliates get funding from the larger public media networks and if there is a way lawmakers can cut off the networks without harming the affiliates.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
