Senate Republicans barely scraped together enough votes to move a plan forward to claw back billions in already-approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, and political analysts say that's a sign of just how unpopular the measure is with voters.
Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote Tuesday to advance the rescissions package to the Senate floor, setting up another possible marathon voting session Wednesday, and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona told "CNN This Morning" the clawback demanded by President Donald Trump was politically toxic.
"I do think what it indicates is this underlying massive anxiety among Republicans as to how much this can hurt them in the midterms, because Democrats are already seizing on all of these things, including this big, horrible bill, and you showed the polling from earlier – Americans do not like it," Cardona said.
"This on top of that is going to enable Democrats to communicate very clearly, I believe, and very authentically the message that Trump and his Republicans, who are focused on loyalty to him instead of loyalty to their own voters, to the people that they promised they would lower prices."
"Inflation is going up," she added. "They're taking programs away from them that voters depend on."
Host Audie Cornish pointed out that voters so far have not demonstrated strong support for continued funding for foreign aid, but Cardona said the rescissions would cut funding for necessary and popular programs.
"The focused message should be, and this is part of it, right, the programs that Republicans are taking away from you, the voter, from you, our constituent, the local news stations, the emergency alerts," Cardona said. "Audie, how important have we learned in the past several weeks, the importance of having emergency alerts?
"So you can talk about the fact that Republicans are causing the death of millions of kids around the globe. That's not a message for them, but I think you can also wrap it around more directly into the programs that Republicans are taking away from kids here, that could also cause their death."
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