Senator Schmitt Calls for Passage of President Trump’s Rescissions Package on Senate Floor

WASHINGTON – Today on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt called for passage of President Trump’s rescissions package to claw back wasteful spending and restore trust for the American people. Schmitt is leading the package in the Senate.

Watch the full speech HERE.

Senator Schmitt’s remarks as prepared for delivery:

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“I rise today in strong support of President Trump’s rescissions package.

“In a time of extraordinary debt, this bill is the first step in a long but necessary fight to put our nation’s fiscal house in order.

“But it’s about much more than that, too.

“This package is not just about how much we spend, but about what we spend it on.

“It’s about whether we are still a sovereign nation — a people in command of their own destiny.

“It’s about whether elected representatives can still act on behalf of the people they serve, or whether they must yield to the vast bureaucratic apparatus of Permanent Washington.

“We cannot accept a system that forces us to fund our own decline.

“Let me begin with something simple: We are $37 trillion in debt. We’re borrowing money from our grandchildren to fund bloated bureaucracies and radical left-wing activists.

“While the actual American people are working long hours to afford groceries and gas, their government has been writing checks to left-wing propaganda outlets and sending billions overseas to countries that hate us.

“Enough is enough.

“This rescissions package is our opportunity to start draining the swamp — not just in theory, but in practice.

“It claws back nearly $10 billion in spending — including billions for radical NGOs, hundreds of millions for foreign interests, and yes, the taxpayer funding that props up corrupt and ideologically captured institutions like NPR and PBS.

“Let’s talk about that for a minute.

“Because no part of this debate has sparked more hysterical outrage from the Left than the effort to defund so-called “public broadcasting.”

“Why? Because they know exactly what’s at stake.

NPR and PBS are not neutral media outlets. They are the closest thing we’ve ever had to an American Pravda.

“They are arms of the left-wing activist class — taxpayer-funded platforms for political propaganda, masquerading as journalism.

“Don’t take my word for it. Take it from Uri Berliner, a veteran NPR editor who recently blew the whistle on what’s happening behind the scenes.

“In a stunning exposé, Berliner described how — from COVID to Hunter Biden’s laptop to the Russia hoax — NPR simply refused to consider any facts or perspectives that didn’t align with the progressive party line.

“Even asking questions about the company’s editorial bias was, and I quote, “treated as evidence of disloyalty.”

“Berliner took a survey of the ideological makeup of NPR’s editorial staff in D.C. The final tally was 87 Democrats, and zero Republicans.

“Zero Republicans. Not one.

“Then there’s the new CEO of NPR: Katherine Maher.

Before she took the job, she spent years denouncing America, praising censorship, and advocating for the most extreme and grotesque forms of far-left politics.

“She described the First Amendment as the “number one challenge” to combating “disinformation,” called President Trump a “deranged racist sociopath,” and celebrated when he was banned from Twitter, saying it was “satisfying to deplatform fascists.”

“Now she’s running America’s National Public Radio, funded in part by your hard-earned tax dollars.

“That, Mr. President, is nothing short of obscene.

“Why are Americans being forced to subsidize institutions that hate them?

“Why are truck drivers in Missouri paying for Ivy League graduates in D.C. to tell them they’re bigots?

“Why are we, as conservatives, sending billions of dollars to left-wing radicals that want to run us out of the public square?

“There is no good answer to these questions. The fact is, we shouldn’t be.

And President Trump’s rescissions package is a huge first step towards ensuring that we never do again.

“But NPR and PBS are just the beginning.

“This package also takes aim at one of the insanity of our foreign aid budget.

“We are sending billions — billions — to every interest under the sun except for that of our own country.

“Here’s just a taste of what this package defunds:

• “$18 million for gender diversity in the Mexican street lighting industry

• “$2.4 million to make international disaster aid more considerate of “sexual orientation and gender identity”

• “$2.2 million to reduce “xenophobia” towards Venezuelan migrants

• “$3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street

• “$4 million for “sedentary migrants” in Colombia

• “$6.2 million to address the needs of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia

• “$33 million for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), including funding for transgender tampons in Bangladesh, LGBTQ campaigns in Rio, and “third-gender” community centers in Southeast Asia

“And that’s not even to mention the $800 million that this package cuts from the Migration and Refugee Assistance account, which funds the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — a program that has been at the center of a gigantic NGO-industrial complex that has been driving the mass migration crisis on the taxpayer dime.

“Americans never voted for any of this. They were never even asked.

“But the entire system is bankrolled by their money.

“Our own citizens are being pushed out of jobs, swamped by third-world immigration, and told they’re racist for complaining about it by people like Katherine Maher.

“We send billions overseas to promote transgenderism and DEI and spend billions here at home to import millions of illegal immigrants and pay the salaries of people who hate us — all while our own people are told there’s no money for safe streets, decent roads, or a secure border.

“The people who run these programs see the federal budget not as a means to serve the American people, but as a piggy bank for a global left-wing revolution.

“The administrative state in Washington, D.C. is the beating heart of this revolution.

“It redistributes hundreds of billions of dollars a year from Middle America to a radical ecosystem of NGOs and activists working to undermine our civilization.

“For too long, the federal government has been hijacked by people with no loyalty to the country they’re supposed to serve.

“Today, we have a chance to change that.

“This is not just about saving money. It’s about taking back control.

“Every dollar we claw back from the NGOs and the foreign aid swamp is a dollar we take away from the people who are waging war on our country.

“It’s a dollar we can use to secure our border, rebuild our nation, and restore the promise of America for the next generation.

“The Left is alarmed by this bill. They should be.

“Unlike generations of Republicans before us — who would talk a big game and then get to D.C. and do nothing — President Trump is serious about ending their tax-dollar gravy train.

“And this rescissions package is a major part of delivering on that promise.

“This is just a first step. But it’s a big one.

“For a long time, Washington has only ever moved in one direction: more spending, more control, and more power for the bureaucrats.

“And as Permanent Washington grows, the citizen shrinks.

This rescissions package reflects President Trump’s promise that the American government will once again serve the American people — not the other way around.

“It is time to remind the bureaucrats, the NGOs and the foreign lobbyists, and their friends in the media that the American taxpayer does not exist to subsidize their ideological pet projects.

“We are not a tax farm for global leftism.

“We are not the world’s piggy bank.

“We are a sovereign nation — and it’s time we started acting like one again.

“The American people didn’t send us here to protect the status quo. They sent us here because they know the status quo is broken.

“They sent us here to fight and deliver for them. And that’s what this bill does.

“I urge my colleagues to join me in voting yes on this package.

“I yield the floor.”

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