Q: Did Democrats request funding for “climate resilience” in Honduras, “civic engagement” in Zimbabwe, and “LGBTQI+ democracy grants” in the Balkans, to end the government shutdown?
A: A Democratic proposal would restore almost $5 billion in unused funding for foreign aid that President Donald Trump let expire on Sept. 30. The proposal did not specify which international projects should receive the funds.
FULL ANSWER
During the government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that Democrats’ demands include “up to $5 billion … for wasteful spending for international projects,” listing specific amounts for civic engagement or “LGBTQI+ democracy grants.” Asked about those projects, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told a reporter he had “no idea what you’re talking about.”
Democratic lawmakers’ temporary funding bill, which amounts to $1.5 trillion over 10 years, did call for restoring about $5 billion approved by Congress for foreign assistance that the Trump administration allowed to expire. However, the Democrats’ proposal didn’t request that the funding be spent on specific projects.
Several readers have asked us about these claims, which have also circulated on social media, including in posts by other Republican lawmakers.
Reasons for the Shutdown
The government has been shut down since Oct. 1 because congressional Republicans and Democrats are at an impasse.
Republicans want to pass a “clean” continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government with no strings attached. Meanwhile, Democrats primarily want Republicans to agree to a funding bill that would extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies that expire this year and reverse certain Medicaid changes that became law with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But some Republicans have said that Democrats have other motives.
In an Oct. 14 press conference about the shutdown, Johnson said that a counterproposal offered by Democrats “would restore up to $5 billion of American taxpayer funds for wasteful spending for international projects.” He then listed examples of spending requests that he said were “in their legislation.”
“They want to spend $24.6 million of your hard-earned dollars as a taxpayer for climate resilience in Honduras. They want to spend $13.4 million for civic engagement in Zimbabwe. They want to send $3.9 million for LGBTQI+ democracy grants in the Western Balkans. They want to spend $2.9 million of your dollars for desert locust risk reduction in the Horn of Africa, and $2 million for ‘organizing for feminist democratic principles in Africa.’
“We are not doing that,” Johnson said.
The issue also came up when a reporter from a conservative news outlet asked Jeffries about the purported spending requests during an Oct. 22 press conference held by House Democrats.
“Can you speak to some of the programs that Democrats want funding for in the $1.5 trillion list of demands?” the reporter asked, referring to an estimate of the total 10-year cost of the continuing resolution proposed by Democrats. “We’ve heard things like $13.4 million for civic engagement in Zimbabwe, $3.9 million for LGBTQ democracy grants in the Balkans, things like this. You guys say this is about saving health care, but how do these pet projects fit in?”
Jeffries responded dismissively: “We have no idea what you’re talking about, or what Republican extremist fed you those talking points. But the reality is, what we are doing is defending the health care of the American people.”
While there is a basis for the claim that Democrats want to restore billions of dollars in canceled foreign aid, Republicans have gone too far in stating that Democrats have demanded specific projects around the world be funded with the money.
Trump’s Rescission Request
The issue began when the White House notified Congress on Aug. 28 that Trump planned to rescind nearly $5 billion in unobligated foreign aid funds through a maneuver known as a “pocket rescission.”
The standard rescission process gives Congress 45 days to act on a president’s request to withhold funds appropriated by Congress. If Congress doesn’t act in that time, the funds must be spent. However, a pocket rescission happens when the request to cancel funds is made less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, making it more likely that the deadline to spend the money (Sept. 30) would occur before Congress responds.
The rescission package that Trump submitted to Congress listed the budget amounts that were proposed for cancellation, the government accounts holding those funds, and examples of international projects that have been funded from those accounts, including some of the projects highlighted by Johnson. The White House called it “government spending that is woke, weaponized, and wasteful.”
For instance, Trump asked to withhold nearly $3.2 billion in budget authority authorized for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s account for Development Assistance, which the proposal said “is intended to fund programs that work to promote resilient societies, but in practice has done the opposite.” The document listed “$24.6 million to build climate resilience in Honduras” and “$13.4 million for civic engagement in Zimbabwe” as examples of what it called “wasteful” spending from that account.
Democrats responded by arguing that the president’s pocket rescission was illegal, and a U.S. District Court judge agreed. But the Supreme Court on Sept. 26, in a preliminary 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, said that the president could continue withholding the unused funds.
What Democrats Proposed
Before that Supreme Court ruling, Democrats, in their own continuing resolution introduced on Sept. 17, proposed that the almost $5 billion the White House froze be extended for the State Department to spend in fiscal year 2026, which began Oct. 1. That’s the same legislation that also proposes permanently extending the Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies and undoing changes that Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act made to the Medicaid program.
But contrary to Republican claims that the Democrats are pushing to fund projects in Honduras, the Balkans and parts of Africa, the Democratic proposal doesn’t stipulate which foreign projects would have to be funded with the money.
“The Democrat-backed fiscal year 2026 continuing resolution would not automatically fund those specific projects, but it would provide funding for the State Department and foreign aid accounts from which those projects received funding in the past,” Joshua Sewell, director of research and policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan government watchdog for fiscal responsibility, told us in an email.
“It would create a situation where Congress provides additional funding that the administration will likely attempt to not spend over the next year,” he said.
To avoid a similar scenario in the future, the bill proposed by Democrats included a provision that would prevent the president from being able to make future rescissions in the 90 days prior to when the approved funding is set to expire.
If Congress voted to make the roughly $5 billion available for spending in the 2026 fiscal cycle, it would be the Trump administration that would control which foreign projects receive funding, a House Democratic aide told us.
The aide said that the Biden administration had “awarded specific programs” based on “broad direction” given by Congress on how appropriated funds could be used, and that the grants mentioned by Johnson and others “have been terminated already” by the Trump administration. Extending the availability of funds that had not been obligated would make those dollars eligible for use based on the “original purposes and conditions” set by Congress, the aide said.
“The Trump Administration would then get to decide what kind of programs and countries they wanted to focus on,” the aide explained.
The office of Sen. Patty Murray, who introduced the Democratic continuing resolution along with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, previously criticized the Trump White House for “citing cherry-picked examples of past projects and initiatives that it finds objectionable” to excuse suspending approved funding for foreign assistance.
“The reality is this administration has flexibility to determine how exactly to fulfill the objectives provided by Congress for this funding — just as any administration does,” Murray’s office said in late August, after Trump’s pocket rescission was submitted to Congress.
Johnson’s Explanation
When we reached out to Johnson’s office, a spokesperson defended his claims, saying in a statement: “The Speaker has clearly and accurately stated what is plainly written in Democrats’ own proposal which includes a demand that President Trump’s rescissions be removed so Democrats can go back to spending $5 billion in American taxpayer funds on wasteful woke projects in other countries. The Democrats’ own appropriations website acknowledges this fact, stating that their CR ‘extends the availability of the funds at issue.’”
It’s true that the continuing resolution would extend the availability of the funds that Trump withheld, but not necessarily for the specific foreign projects cited by Johnson and others.
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