'They're gonna regret': GOP warned disaster looms as Senate drama boils

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate kicked off a “vote-a-rama” — a lengthy process where senators from both parties get to offer amendments, political or otherwise, on budget measures — as Republicans rushed to appease President Donald Trump by clawing back funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

Whenever the party in control of the White House changes, lawmakers seek to undo the previous administration’s agenda. Only this time, the Senate’s debating a $9 billion package shipped to Capitol Hill by former Trump ally Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

It’s an effort to enshrine otherwise illegal government-wide cuts — because, constitutionally-speaking, Congress is supposed to hold the nation’s purse strings, not the White House, agencies and un-elected DOGE team members.

Trump has demanded Republicans send him the measure by week’s end — even as veteran Democrats on Capitol Hill predict the political equivalent of nuclear fallout should the GOP pass the measure, thereby upending decades of bipartisanship on such matters in one fell swoop.

“We won't have the resources and capacity to respond to disasters,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story of likely effects in the realm of foreign policy should the recissions package pass.

“We'll retreat from fighting pandemics and investing in public health. Dozens of countries that have relied on us as trustworthy partners for decades are left abruptly questioning whether they can count on us at all. So across the world, there will be specific and concrete harms to people: clinics that close, classrooms that shutter, folks who don't get help.”

Three Republican senators tried to block the measure by opposing it in committee, but Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote, setting up Wednesday’s amendments marathon.

Among the GOP rebels, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) raised alarms over the measure's proposed $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a Bush-era program to combat AIDS and HIV in developing countries that’s credited with saving millions of lives.

The White House conceded the point, and agreed to exempt PEPFAR. But the measure’s still promising deep cuts to formerly bipartisan foreign aid programs.

Those cuts will “really hurt our position in the world,” Coons said.

“Isn't China just waiting in the wings?” Raw Story asked of Beijing’s efforts to take America’s place in the developing world.

“They're not waiting here,” Coons said. “They're filling the gap.”

Closer to home, the GOP cuts would hammer public broadcasting, an area long decried by conservative talking heads as biased and costly, even as more moderate Republicans and Democrats have championed public broadcasting as vital for under-served communities.

Rural communities will suffer harmful cuts if Trump gets his wish, said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), particularly among Native American communities throughout the U.S.

“For some people, that's their only access to local news,” Kelly told Raw Story while hopping an elevator up to the Senate floor as the “vote-a-rama” kicked off. “For kids, you know, being able to watch Sesame Street and just other shows, and emergency alerts.

“I think people are going to be shocked as some of these stations, whether it's public radio or public broadcasting stations, start to shut down. The public radio thing for the Navajo is really big.”

Asked if he thought Republicans would pay an electoral price for such cuts, the swing state senator predicted backlash for the MAGA-tinged GOP.

“There is a lot of stuff that they're gonna regret,” Kelly said.

He also pointed to the passage earlier this month of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — a mixture of deep health-care cuts, funding boosts for immigration enforcement, and tax cuts — which polls badly with the American people.

“They’re going to regret $4 trillion added to the debt, that they now own,” Kelly said. .

“I think they're going to regret kicking millions of people off their health care, because those people still get sick, and it's going to cost more. Ultimately, it's going to cost somebody more.”