Pelosi Slams GOP Rescissions Package on House Floor: “An Absolute Shame”
Washington, D.C. – This evening, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks on the House Floor opposing the Republican rescissions bill, warning that its deep cuts to foreign aid and global health initiatives pose a grave threat to U.S. national security.
Pelosi emphasized that slashing billions in foreign aid and diplomatic funding undermines America’s ability to combat global poverty, disease and instability—tools long recognized as essential to preventing conflict and strengthening U.S. influence abroad. Drawing on bipartisan history, she highlighted how past GOP cuts opened the door for geopolitical rivals like China and Russia to fill the void left by American withdrawal.
Watch her full remarks here.
Read the transcript of Speaker Emerita Pelosi's Floor remarks below:
Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership. We're so proud of you.
Now, tonight is a dangerous night for our country. I'm not even talking about the defense bill—whether we agree or disagree on that. I'm talking about what's happening in this rescission bill.
Don't take it from me. Just take it from Navy Admiral William McRaven—Navy SEAL, four-star admiral—who warned that cutting the State Department and USAID will put every American at risk.
This is the quote: 'This is no time to weaken any element of America's power. The dismissal of highly trained diplomats at the State Department and the dismantling of USAID will jeopardize national security and make the military's job more difficult.'
'Our national security has never depended on military strength alone. It relies on collaboration with a strong Foreign service and diplomatic corps'—and I'm adding with our USAID.
In this bill, over $8 billion is taken away from what we do to alleviate poverty in the world, to lessen things like HIV and AIDS and other diseases which have an impact on global health—to stop funding the World Health Organization.
I give praise to President Bush when he put forth PEPFAR. We worked closely with him to fund it as appropriators. 25 million people's lives were saved.
But we're saying the alleviation of poverty and the eradication of disease is no longer—And you all did this in the 90s too, when you took control of the House.
And you know what you did? You opened the door for China and Russia to go into these countries and have geopolitical victories funded by our money that they made in trade against us—speaking of China—and then us walking out the door.
This is absolutely a shame. An absolute shame.
I urge everyone to vote no on it and understand what this is.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.