Fear of Trump funding 'wrench' escalates as Congress faces shutdown cliff

Source: Politico

08/20/2025 04:45 AM EDT


President Donald Trump’s budget director has talked about attempting the ultimate override of Congress’ funding prerogatives during the final 45 days of the fiscal year — and that time is now. With six weeks left until Oct. 1, lawmakers are staring down a government shutdown deadline alongside the threat of a “pocket rescission,” a controversial White House tactic to cancel federal cash without the consent of Congress. It’s also a ploy that the government’s top watchdog, along with key lawmakers from both parties, say is illegal.

“The money evaporates at the end of the fiscal year,” White House budget chief Russ Vought said last month in defense of the gambit, adding it has “been used before.” Lawmakers anticipate Trump will send Congress a formal rescissions request to claw back billions of dollars in federal funding as soon as lawmakers return from recess in September.

Already, the threat of the White House then unilaterally canceling the funding in October — regardless of Congress’ response to the request — is straining negotiations between Democrats and Republicans desperately trying to head off a shutdown with bipartisan negotiations, which Vought is also actively seeking to undermine.

“He is trying to throw a wrench in this by introducing or sending to us a second rescission bill — by trying to do pocket rescissions,” Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, the top Democrat on the appropriations panel that funds the military, said of Vought in an interview. It also would undoubtedly throw Republicans into another politically dicey balancing act of trying not to buck their president while answering to constituents who are feeling the effects of the administration’s mass gutting of widely used government programs.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/20/trump-vought-pocket-rescissions-shutdown-00515278