Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: GOP Threatens UNICEF Cuts—Kids’ Lives Depend On YOUR Actions

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Tim Miller takes on the Senate vote that threatens critical UNICEF funding—putting children’s lives at risk around the world. Republicans are pushing a budget cut that targets aid for the most vulnerable, despite recent massive spending elsewhere. Take immediate action and call your senators now: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Hey, everybody, Tim Miller from The Bullwork here. We have some breaking news tonight. The Senate, as we speak, is waiting on JD Vance to cast the tie-breaking vote on a rescissions package that would cut about 9 billion in previously appropriated funds from the budget. A bunch of stuff in there, but I want to focus on just this small line item in the grand scheme of things, 100 million that would go to UNICEF, the United International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF stands for. And previously, there had been a bipartisan effort to support this organization. It helps feed and take care of the most vulnerable children throughout the world.

It is, again, a pretty small line item in the grand scheme of things. Just to kind of put context into where we are, and then I want to get into the specifics of this UNICEF funding and just how outrageous it is. As I mentioned, there's a 50-50 vote that has happened in the Senate. Three Republicans have voted against Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins. And so that's why JD Vance is coming to pass the tie breaking vote. So this is a procedural vote that will bring this bill to the floor. So the vote on final passage will be tomorrow. Presumably it's 50-50 now, it would pass again 50-50 tomorrow. But before they do so, there's what they call a Voterama, where people

have a chance to bring amendments up. There have been several Republican senators that have expressed lukewarm or even kind of quasi-hostile views towards the bill. Mike Rounds said he didn't like parts of it out of South Dakota, Roger Wicker out of Mississippi, Tom Tillis is in the middle of a little brouhaha with the president of the United States of North Carolina. So there are potential other Republican senators that could vote against it. They'd already taken out the cuts to PEPFAR. A lot of Republicans have some pride about PEPFAR since it happened during the Bush administration. So that was good news. There had been additional cuts to PEPFAR that got removed from this package before final

vote. There also were a few payoffs. Mike Brown's got some rural radio or something in South Dakota that was going to be cut. That got pulled out of the package. Among the cuts is the National Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS and NPR, which are going to see real budget cuts, real losses as a result of this bill. Exactly what all the provisions are, are still unclear even to the senators. Susan Collins put out this statement earlier today saying that she's not against rescissions in general. It's something that they've done before,

but the way that they've done it has always been different. She writes, the sparse text that was sent to Congress included very little detail and does not give an accounting of the specific program cuts that would total the $9.4 billion. For example, there are $2.5 billion in cuts to development assistance account, which covers everything from basic education to water

and sanitation to food security, but we don't know exactly how these programs will be affected. She goes on to talk about how she's forced some of the cuts against others, but this is a very rushed process and she opposes it. So circling back to what I mentioned at the top though with UNICEF. So the funding is going to be cut here. I called it the general fund earlier. The technical term is it's called the core resources fund. And so UNICEF has some earmarked funds for specific projects or programs, but the core resources is this critical flexible funding that UNICEF can use to direct resources where

they're needed in cases of emergency, in cases where there is, or there are various flare-ups around the globe. It is absolutely critical funding. They mentioned some of the direct programs that have been supported by this fund. In Bangladesh, it helped with children's nutritional outcomes, contributing to a 40% reduction in stunting among children under five. The Republic of Congo health facilities for over 100,000 children. I could go on and on here.

The point here is this is not some deep state wasteful program. This is not like one of these, you know, silly things like, like we're funding, you know, that we're sending money, you know, to try out vegan home cooked meals in Gambia or anything like that. Like what UNICEF does is, is help the most vulnerable children throughout the world. The number of preventable deaths for children under five have been cut by more than 60% since 1990, thanks to the work that UNICEF has been doing. For a pro-life party, for an empathetic party, for a Christian party,

for a human, you know, any human being that cares about others throughout the world. Like, this is just the tiniest part of the spec of the federal budget. And if we could use it to support an organization that is stopping the preventable deaths of just these little babies all around the world? Who would be against that? Why would we be against that? It is absolutely insane that the Republicans would jam through on a party line vote that requires a tie-breaking vote from the vice president, a rescission bill that would cut this tiny line item that goes to save dying kids around the world. We can't find the budget room for that. They just passed this bill, the one

big, beautiful bill the other week that spends $45 billion on prisons for immigrants, on detention centers for immigrants. We can come up with $45 billion for an archipelago of immigrant prisons. How do you square that? How can anybody square that within their values or their framework? Again, it'd be one thing if this is small, if it's a state budget, and you gotta balance it every year, and you're like, ah, you know, we just can't afford making the charitable contribution this year. That's not what this is.

These guys just passed a bill that's gonna increase the debt by trillions. Trillions! They're not anywhere close to balancing the budget. They're jamming up all this money to hassle migrants, to create a new immigration police in this country, to run up the debt and deficit. You're not balancing the budget. You're not getting anywhere close. You're not being fiscally responsible. This is just cruel. This is just like, we're going to only

cut the money for the people that don't have lobbyists, don't have anybody to advocate for them. We're going to take the most vulnerable people throughout the world, little babies, and other countries, and we're going to cut their budget. We're not going to cut the spending on any of our friends, any of the organizations that lobby us. We're not going to do any of the hard cuts to the Defense Department or, you know, to the other organizations where, you know, poor can access funds are being spent. We're not going to cut anything that's coming to any of our states.

All we're going to do is pretend to be fiscally responsible. We're going to cut this tiny line item that would help three year olds in Bangladesh stay alive. I just, I don't, there's a chance to stop this. There's a chance to stop this. So that's the message I want to get across. Call your senators. And I want to call out a couple of them in particular.

If you're in Alabama, call Katie Britt. Katie Britt is supposed to be a reasonable Christian woman. You know, who cares? Not, you know, one of these sociopathic politicians. Katie Britt has a family. Katie Britt is pro-life. Like, can you find that somewhere else in the budget? Can we deal with that in fiscal year 26? If you're in Mississippi,

call Roger Wicker. He's already expressed concerns about this bill. He might be retiring soon. Maybe he can advocate for this. If you're in South Dakota, call my grounds. Actually, if you're a Republican or you're a Christian, call any of these people and make the case, but particularly if you're in their state. If you're in North Carolina, call Tom Telles. Call Tom Telles and ask him to step up on this. If you're here in Louisiana, call Bill Cassidy. Bill Cassidy was a doctor. Bill Cassidy has treated the vulnerable. All right. Round, call James Langford if you're in Oklahoma. James Langford has demonstrated reasonableness in the past. Those are a couple ideas. Katie Britt, James Langford, Tom Telles, Bill Cassidy, Mike Rounds. Do you really want to cut this tiny line item from an organization that is just doing the Lord's work that is

out there helping keep little kids alive? I don't think you do. There's a chance to stop it tomorrow. There's a chance to, you can still cut, you know, big bird and the other stuff that you want to cut, woke NPR nails, you know, but we can afford this just like we could have afforded PEPFAR and I'm happy that PEPFAR got put back in. We can afford UNICEF. We can feed little kids and we can prevent the spread of deadly diseases and AIDS in other countries. That is something that America is capable of doing still, I hope. I hope. So please call your senators and if this thing gets voted on tomorrow,

call your congressman because it's a narrow majority in the house as well. And try to get this funding put back in, because this is crazy. And it's just like the moral dichotomy with what these guys passed and the OBBB, you know, versus to decide that we have enough money to jack up the debt by two trillion one week, and then two weeks later be like, oh, please, please come on. Come on guys. You can do this. All right. Subscribe to the feed. That's all I got for you. We'll be back here tomorrow talking some FBI talk, talking a little bit about what's going on at DOJ. I've got two great interviews coming for you, so subscribe to the feed, stick around for that,

tell your friends, we'll see you soon. Peace.