House Republican leaders are preparing for a late night in the chamber as they try to jam through President Donald Trump’s $9 billion package of cuts to federal funding — after a day of intense talks with GOP holdouts demanding a vote on a Jeffrey Epstein-related measure.
Republican leadership sources say the plan is to push the bill, which would formally enshrine a slice of the funding cuts sought by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, through the chamber sometime Thursday night — with the potential to spill into the overnight hours. GOP lawmakers are signaling there’s been a resolution in a separate dispute on an Epstein-related vote, but they have yet to divulge details on any potential deal.
The issue of more transparency over the Epstein case has percolated for days on Capitol Hill and placed a wedge between Trump and even some of his most steadfast supporters in the House GOP. Republican leadership spent hours with House Rules Committee members Thursday afternoon, negotiating the best path forward.
The DOGE cuts bill – known as a “recissions package” on Capitol Hill – would cancel $9 billion in funding to foreign aid and public broadcasting. Roughly $8 billion will be taken from congressionally approved foreign aid programs as part of the White House’s efforts to dismantle the US Agency for International Development. Another $1.1 billion comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR and PBS.
The committee began its meeting Thursday evening to consider the package. It must approve the rule, which governs floor debate, before the full House can act. It’s unclear how long the committee will meet, but Democrats are planning to force amendment votes to put Republicans on the record over whether the Trump administration should release additional files from the Epstein case.
In the committee meeting, Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern has demanded to see the details of any deal the GOP had reached over an Epstein-related vote, but so far, Republicans have declined to provide that information.
Once the panel adopts the rule, the full House would then need to approve it — and Republicans can only afford to lose three GOP votes on the expected party-line vote. Then, the chamber would vote on final passage of the underlying bill. How late the vote will go is unclear.
The House is racing the clock as Republicans attempt to get the DOGE cuts bill passed and to the president for his signature before a Friday deadline. The deadline is mandated under the budget rules Republicans are using to move the package without Democratic votes.
Senate Republicans agreed in the early hours of Thursday morning to cancel the billions in already approved funding after a marathon overnight vote session on amendments.
While most Senate Republicans firmly embraced the spending cuts and are pressing for more, some within the party raised concerns over the White House push, arguing that it set a harmful precedent undermining congressional authority.
Ultimately, just two Republicans opposed the measure on the final Senate vote: Susan Collins, the Maine senator who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
CNN’s Morgan Rimmer, Sarah Ferris, Annie Grayer and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
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