Conservatives and allies of President-elect Donald Trump is dismantling a narrative from Democratic lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren that Republicans blocked funding for childhood cancer research in the spending bill, pointing to a standalone bill that had languished in the Democratic-controlled Senate. months.
Congress passed a pared-back spending bill early Saturday morning as the government headed toward a prolonged shutdown. The bill’s passage followed tech billionaire Elon Musk and other Trump allies earlier last week denouncing a more than 1,500-page piece of legislation as “outrageous” and “full of excessive spending, special interest giveaways and pork barrel politics,” demanding lawmakers to to return. to the negotiating table.
The Senate advanced a third version of a short-term funding bill Saturday morning, after negotiations that watered down the legislation and did not include measures such as offering raises to lawmakers.
When negotiations were concluded, Warren and other Democrats tried to condemn Republicans for blocking funding for childhood cancer research in the bill.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, a Democrat, is renewing the call for a national COVID-19 day of remembrance. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“We’re getting our first taste now – this is it live and in living color – of what it means to have this DOGE,” Warren said on CNN as the government prepared to shut down Friday evening.
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DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, is an upcoming presidential advisory committee that will be led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wants to cut excessive government spending and reduce the size of government under Trump’s second administration.
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks during an America PAC town hall on October 26, 2024 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
‘Here, and what that will mean. And that’s where Elon Musk’s fingerprints are all over. Because what this bill says, for example, is everything, let’s get rid of financing research into childhood cancer. Let’s eliminate funding for research into the early detection of cervical cancer and breast cancer. Let’s eliminate funding for research into children with Down syndrome and sickle cell anemia. Let’s get rid of those things so we can make room for tax cuts for billionaires, that’s Elon Musk’s idea of efficiency,” she continued.
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While the The Democratic Party’s war room issued a press release declaring, “Trump and his MAGA minions in Congress have decided to threaten a government shutdown for his political gain – and now they have gone as low as cutting funding for childhood cancer research.”
“Lyin’ Liz Warren aka Pocahontas,” Musk shot back in response to Warren’s comments: referring to the communal mockery of Trump Warren.
FILE – The Capitol in Washington is framed by early morning clouds, March 19, 2024. Congress has until midnight Friday to come up with a way to fund the government or federal agencies will close. It is up to each federal agency to determine how to handle a shutdown, but there would be disruptions to many services. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
Other conservatives and Trump allies rejected the narrative that the Republican Party was blocking funding for childhood cancer research, pointing to a standalone bill that passed the Republican-led House in March and had languished for months in Democratic-led Senate.
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“Elizabeth Warren repeats the lie that @elonmusk and the Republicans blocked funding for childhood cancer research. A standalone bill to fund childhood cancer research passed the Republican-controlled House in March and was held up in the Democratic-controlled Senate,” according to popular conservative X-account Libs. from TikTok posted in response to Warren’s CNN interview.
“Democrats Blocked Funding for Childhood Cancer Research.”
WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 27: Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks with a staffer before the start of a Senate Banking Committee hearing on oversight of credit reporting agencies, on Capitol Hill April 27, 2023 in Washington, DC. The hearing featured testimony from leaders of the three largest national credit reporting agencies. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The House of Representatives passed a standalone bill on March 5 by a vote of 384-4 that would allocate millions of dollars per year to pediatric research through 2028. The bill was introduced in the Senate on March 6, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had taken no action on the legislation, leading months later to condemnation from conservatives that Democrats were using the research funding as a “bargaining tool.”
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“Democrats are using children with cancer as political shields in the shutdown game to blame Republicans, after using them as political shields to defend all the nonsense Democrats wanted to include in the bill. If this funding is so important, it could be passed on its own as a standalone bill, like how government is supposed to work, instead of cramming hundreds of useless proposals into the same bill as funding childhood cancer research in a mess of 1500 pages that no one actually reads, so no one reads it. you can attack anyone who doesn’t support the useless things by claiming they hate children with cancer,” according to an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner.
An evaluation of the legislation shows that on Friday evening the Senate passed the legislation by voice vote, following a condemnation against the Republican Party for allegedly blocking funding for the investigation.
The legislation provides $12.6 million in annual funding for cancer research through 2031.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Warren’s office for additional comment Sunday morning but did not immediately receive a response.
