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The U.S. Senate on Tuesday narrowly advanced key legislation making good on President Donald Trump’s promise to defund publicly funded media outlets like NPR, but not without overriding opposition from three Republicans who almost derailed the bill.
Conservatives focused their anger on the three holdouts who bucked their party, forcing Vice President J.D. Vance to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of stripping PBS and NPR of taxpayer funds. It was the sixth time this year that Vance had to intervene to avoid a defeat in the Republican-controlled chamber.
The vote came as Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) works feverishly to shore up several of Trump’s agenda items before Congress breaks for its annual August recess.
The 51-50 vote saw Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who is up for reelection in 2026, break with her party over a bill that sought to claw back public funds from both media outlets. Still, she voted to advance the legislation to the floor for its final vote.
“The rescissions package has a big problem — nobody really knows what program reductions are in it,” Collins said in a prepared statement released after the procedural vote. “That isn’t because we haven’t had time to review the bill. Instead, the problem is that (the Office of Management and Budget) has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process.”
