Trump blocks $4.9B in foreign aid Congress OK'd, using maneuver last seen nearly 50 years ago

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News/AP

Updated 9:52 AM EDT, August 29, 2025


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has told House Speaker Mike Johnson that he won’t be spending $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

Trump, who sent a letter to Johnson, R-La., on Thursday, is using what’s known as a pocket rescission for the first time in nearly 50 years. That’s when a president submits a request to Congress to not spend approved funds toward the end of the fiscal year, so that Congress cannot act on the request in the 45-day timeframe and the money goes unspent as a result. The fiscal year draws to a close at the end of September.

The last pocket recession was in 1977 by then-President Jimmy Carter, and the Trump administration argues that it’s a legally permissible tool. But such a move, if standardized by the White House, could effectively bypass Congress on key spending choices and potentially wrest some control over spending from the House and the Senate.

The letter announcing the rescission was posted Friday morning on the X account of the White House Office of Management and Budget. It said the funding would be cut from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-foreign-aid-pocket-rescission-374c63e6b4004e819a657e33b76f502e

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REFERENCE (last) - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143520576

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. TACO Don: ABANDON the world and expect the world to bend to our will.

NO FUCKING WAY!!!

The world despises you and we the people, are paying the price!

[Hugin]

2. Still aching for a line item veto...

The better to target your prejudices with.

How is this different from sitting on flood warning system money until it times out killing over a hundred people in a horrific manner, it’s not.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Congress had passed a line item veto, pushed by Gingrinch

and in effect while Clinton was in office. And then suddenly, the GOP didn't like it anymore and the SCOTUS declared it "unconstitutional".

https://web.archive.org/web/20081008092502/http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/06/25/scotus.lineitem/

[popsdenver]

8. Don't give this group of Republicans

any ideas, they may resurrect it (along with the current Republican's wholly owned subsidiary....the USSC.).....

[BumRushDaShow]

11. If the SCOTUS upholds use of this idiotic "pocket recission"

then no legislation will be needed for a line-item veto because that does the same thing (although legislation wouldn't get through the Senate anyway). He just needs to refuse to spend allocated funds until the end of the FY, after which it returns to the Treasury.

[popsdenver]

15. Hey !!!!!!!!!

Thx BRDS.............this ol' mind has a hard time keeping up and/or understanding.

How you been??????

[BumRushDaShow]

16. Have been hanging in there!

Someone in the administration has spent a lot of time finding any and every loophole to get around complying with a law.

I expect if we ever retake the chambers, we can start closing all the exploited loopholes. Back in the '70s, when Congress bypassed the "Budget Control and Impoundment Act" after Nixon did the same "refusal to spend appropriated funds" thing, they did it because they were pissed. The GOP-majority in this Congress today are a bunch of lackey cowards. Or as former Philly DA/Mayor/PA Governor Ed Rendell might call them - "a bunch of wussies".

[Bayard]

3. I'll say this for him,

He's hired some good researchers to comb through ancient law that's still on the books to find some he can use.

[ificandream]

4. I was thinking that as well.

And not just in this case and in the White House. He's done that all through his legal battles.

Hopefully someone can bring him and his schemes down. Where's Clark Kent when we need him?

[Marthe48]

7. I'd settle for Perry Mason

n/t

[popsdenver]

9. In all reality

He and ALL of the Republican Politicians in the U.S. House and Senate, don't have the grey matter to come up with ANY original thoughts,
This is all being hand fed to them by the 2025 and Federalists..............The True Dark State...........

(with additional marching orders given daily to Trump by Putin)

[kimbutgar]

5. I bet he is using that money instead for funding his ICE gestapo

[popsdenver]

10. More likely,

as with everything he does, grifting it somehow for himself.........

[IcyPeas]

13. Trumps gestapo don't like being called gestapo apparently.

Poor wittle pretend gestapo meatheads.

Time to make some gestapo-inspired signs for the next protest.

[kimbutgar]

14. I'll take those marching orders

My next protest sign will be “Get out ICE Gestapo and take the orange pedo felon with you” !

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. Inviting China to eat our lunch

If anyone believes Trump cares about the Federal debt I have a degree from Trump U to sell them.