Charlamagne can’t wrap his head around why GOP cutting public broadcasting, foreign aid

Radio host Charlamagne tha God said on Friday that he could not comprehend why Republicans passed a rescissions package clawing back $9 billion in cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting.

The House of Representatives voted 216 to 213 to approve President Donald Trump’s rescissions package, with only two Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Turner of Ohio, voting “no” on the legislation. Charlamagne argued on “The Breakfast Club” that the package would hurt people who require assistance, especially food.

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“I just don’t understand why they are so hellbent on cutting things that actually help people, things that actually educate people, things that actually, you know, provide funding, you know, for people to actually eat. You know, I’m an ambassador for the food bank in New York City,” Charlamagne said. “And like, it’s programs like that that are directly impacted by these cuts. And if you see the work that these people do, all they’re doing is providing, you know, groceries and food for people who actually need it. So why are you so hellbent on hurting people that help? I don’t understand that logic.”

“[T]hey need to come to the hood, and they need to have conversations with people,” he added. “They need to come to rural areas, like I’m from in South Carolina, and have conversations with people and realize that a lot of these people are doing the best they can — busting their ass, going to work — but they got enough money to put, you know, to pay their bills, but they may not have enough money for food. And this is where these programs like this, you know, help.”

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) distributed billions of dollars to foreign aid and left-wing initiatives, including sending 65.5 million condoms, 9.8 million injectable birth control products and 334,000 IUDs abroad in fiscal year 2022. It also sent $2 million to Guatemala to help organizations perform sex-change operations.

Moreover, it funded a “Sesame Street” program for children in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.

Public media outlets have also displayed bias against conservatives.

For instance, NPR decided not to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election, asserting they did not want to “waste the listeners and readers time on stories that are just pure distractions.” The outlet falsely reported in 2018 that Donald Trump Jr. lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his 2017 testimony regarding plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow, which actually referred to a completely different project.

Furthermore, the White House released a fact sheet in May including a December Media Research Center (MRC) study that found that over a six-month period, PBS news reports used the term “far right” 162 times as opposed to only six uses of the term “far left.” The fact sheet also included a September MRC study finding PBS gave the 2024 Republican National Convention 72% negative coverage while the Democratic National Convention that year garnered 88% positive coverage.

Republican Reps. Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Mark Amodei of Nevada changed their votes to “yes” when the lower chamber considered the legislation for a second time, citing the Senate amending the package to safeguard some funding for global AIDS relief as well as other global health and food assistance initiatives.

Senate Republicans and the White House agreed on Tuesday to exempt a proposed $400 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

The package delivers on Trump’s commitment to shutter USAID and defund NPR and PBS. It specifically claws back $1.1 billion in funding for the next two years for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CBP), which is a private nonprofit that partly finances NPR and PBS.

The rescissions package is the first piece of legislation to codify Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts. There is still about $164 billion in federal spending DOGE identified as wasteful that Congress has yet to claw back.