The Daily Fuckup

President Trump signed the Rescissions Act of 2025 on July 24, 2025, putting his name on a package that cancels budget authority Congress had previously approved. The White House said the bill rescinds certain budget authority under the Impoundment Control Act, and congressional research later noted that it was the first successful use of that law for a rescissions bill since 1992. ([whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/07/h-r-4-and-h-r-517-signed-into-law-s-1582/))

The package is not a direct statutory kill switch for PBS and NPR, but it does cut federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps support public broadcasting outlets and local stations. That distinction matters because the politics of the bill are louder than its bookkeeping. Supporters describe the move as a clean trim to wasteful spending; critics see a targeted hit against media institutions conservatives have wanted to punish for years. ([schmitt.senate.gov](https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/senator-schmitt-attends-white-house-ceremony-for-signing-of-rescissions-package/))

Republicans did not hide the fact that they wanted the political payoff. In a statement released the day of the signing, Sen. Eric Schmitt, who said he led the package through the Senate, said he attended a White House signing ceremony and praised the bill as a way to eliminate $9 billion in wasteful spending and end taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS. That is the most explicit sourcing available for the ceremony and for the administration’s allies selling the package as more than a budget document. ([schmitt.senate.gov](https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/senator-schmitt-attends-white-house-ceremony-for-signing-of-rescissions-package/))

That leaves Trump with a familiar governing problem: the policy may be real, but the presentation turns it into a partisan trophy. A rescissions bill can be defended as ordinary fiscal housekeeping. It gets harder to make that case when the people celebrating it frame the cuts as a strike against “captured” media and other ideological targets. The law still does what it says on the tin. The political message is what makes it feel like something else. ([whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/07/h-r-4-and-h-r-517-signed-into-law-s-1582/))