{"id":14037,"date":"2026-07-23T00:07:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=14037"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:07:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:07:51","slug":"cornyn-threatens-to-block-trump-noms-over-unreleased-pepfar-funds-and-quickly-relents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=14037","title":{"rendered":"Cornyn Threatens to Block Trump Noms Over Unreleased PEPFAR Funds \u2014 And Quickly Relents"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n\r\n<br><div id=\"article-content\">\n            \n\n\n\n\n<p>Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Tuesday threatened to vote against President Donald Trump\u2019s ambassador nominees for Jamaica and Slovakia unless the Trump administration released the money Congress appropriated for the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) \u2014 before he got \u201cassurances\u201d that convinced him to drop the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Cornyn said he would single-handedly stop the nominations of Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano from being discharged from the committee, and therefore slowing down their confirmation, unless he received assurances on PEPFAR.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cThe only way it seems like you can get the administration\u2019s attention on some of these funding issues is by using the leverage to withhold votes on nominees,\u201d Cornyn <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/burgessev\/status\/2079650547909455882?s=20\" target=\"_blank\">told Semafor<\/a>. \u201cWe are going to use the committee vote tomorrow as a way to \u2026 get the money distributed the way Congress appropriated it.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Cornyn did ultimately vote to advance the nomination of Lake and Mastriano out of committee on Wednesday, saying he received assurances from the Trump administration on the funds in question.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>PEPFAR, the longstanding program to combat HIV\/AIDS around the world, has slowly suffocated under the Trump administration and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Since February 2025, PEPFAR has been operating under a waiver that restricts the program to \u201clife-saving HIV services.\u201d Even then, Trump officials have largely declined to spend money on PEPFAR that Congress has appropriated.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), the executive branch cannot pause funding unless it sends Congress a deferral request \u2014 which has to meet certain specific requirements. Experts say that \u201cnot liking a policy\u201d does not meet any of those requirements and argue that the Trump administration\u2019s pause on PEPFAR funds violates the ICA.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cPEPFAR is one of the most effective programs that the United States government has ever put together in terms of lives saved and people helped versus cost. The Trump administration has been illegally impounding funds \u2014 either through letting funds lapse or through illegal deferrals \u2014 basically since Trump came back into office,\u201d Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at Center for American Progress, told TPM.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cBut in addition to the illegality, in addition to breaking budget laws, the actual human impact is a lot of dead people,\u201d Kogan added. \u201cIt\u2019s not just that they are telling Congress to fuck off. It\u2019s not just that they\u2019re ignoring the Constitution. They\u2019re also killing people by doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The Trump administration\u2019s curtailing of foreign aid, including PEPFAR, has wreaked havoc on the world\u2019s poorest people. The freezing of PEPFAR funds came as part of DOGE\u2019s destruction of USAID \u2013\u00a0surgeon and public health researcher Atul Gawande <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/the-new-yorker-interview\/the-human-cost-of-doges-war-on-usaid\" target=\"_blank\">estimated<\/a> this month that the end of U.S. foreign aid had caused 700,000 deaths. On PEPFAR specifically, a recent study <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/hiv-aids-pepfar-usaid-trump-2165879c1def1369264b795793d6351d\" target=\"_blank\">found<\/a> that in fiscal year 2025, two million fewer people with HIV were receiving antiretrovirals after the cuts \u2013\u00a0a 10 percent decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>It\u2019s not clear from the statement that Cornyn\u2019s office provided to TPM that the senator managed to change much of this.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>He received \u201cconfirmation that all unobligated PEPFAR funds expiring in September will be obligated as expeditiously as possible and include appropriate notification to Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The statement said Cornyn also secured \u201cspending plans for FY25 and FY26 PEPFAR funds,\u201d with a timeframe for \u201cfuture awards to faith-based organizations.\u201d He also received \u201ca guarantee that the more than $270M planned transfer from the U.S. State Department to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be completed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Per budget documents reviewed by TPM, the Trump administration had not spent nearly $1 billion in PEPFAR funding by late last year. In Zambia, the State Department offered the country a deal it couldn\u2019t refuse: PEPFAR funding would be restored, provided the government give U.S. companies <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/us-zambia-diplomacy-trump-health-aid-minerals-8a38c5c3c3a5dcddaa3a7cb012278b63\" target=\"_blank\">access to minerals rights.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->          <\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n      FB.init({\n        appId: \"101800829865996\",\n        xfbml: true,\n        version: ' v2.6'\n      });\n      window.fbAsyncInit.__didInit = true;\n    };\n    (function(d, s, id) {\n      var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n      if (d.getElementById(id)) {\n        return;\n      }\n      js = d.createElement(s);\n      js.id = id;\n      js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n    }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n  <\/script>\r\n<br><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Tuesday threatened to vote against President Donald Trump\u2019s ambassador nominees for Jamaica and Slovakia unless the Trump administration released the money Congress appropriated for the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) \u2014 before he got \u201cassurances\u201d that convinced him to drop the plan. A member of the Senate Foreign&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2267713937.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}