Thune admits Trump admin 'needs to be more specific' about planned cuts

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) admitted that Trump administration officials should be more specific in laying out the planned cuts in the rescissions package after three key Republicans voted against moving to get onto the bill on Tuesday night due in large part to the lack of details provided by top brass. 

"The administration needs to be more specific. I think that's a fair point," Thune told reporters a day after Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted against moving toward the proposal.

The GOP leader added that some of the cuts to foreign aid are not as specific due to the "fair amount of flexibility" given to the State Department over how to allocate congressionally-appropriated resources.

"But I don't disagree. I think more specificity would be a good thing and certainly more detail in terms of what exactly it is they intend to cut as a result of all this," Thune continued. "But I think for the most part, most of our members believe there was enough detail there to make a good decision about whether we want to move forward on the package."

The opposition of the GOP trio forced Vice President Vance to break the tie to allow the rescissions package to advance. 

Collins, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, heaped criticism on the Office of Management and Budget for not offering a more specific detailing of the plans, which largely targets foreign aid and funding for public broadcasters, including the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). 

“The rescissions package has a big problem – nobody really knows what program reductions are in it,” she said after the vote. “That isn’t because we haven’t had time to review the bill. Instead, the problem is that OMB has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process.”

OMB Director Russell Vought appeared at the Senate GOP’s weekly luncheon to discuss the rescissions plan, during which multiple members pressed him for more fleshed out details. 

The White House and GOP leaders extended an olive branch in her direction earlier on Tuesday by stripping out $400 million in planned cuts to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which had been echoed by other members of the conference. 

The total package now checks in at $9 billion, down from the $9.4 billion planned with the PEPFAR dollars. 

Vote-a-rama on the package is set to kick off early this afternoon.