By Suzanne Bowdey

Jeffrey Epstein may be dead, but his power to shake up Washington is very much alive. In what House leaders would call an unwelcome intrusion, the controversial sex trafficker made a surprise appearance at what was supposed to be the Republicans’ victory lap on spending cuts, threatening to derail months of around-the-clock work by the Trump administration to slash waste. But in the end, even the country’s biggest headline couldn’t stop the House from delivering on the brief legacy of Elon Musk.

Democrats (and some Republicans) had tried to gum-up the process by forcing a vote that would demand the release of the Epstein files — a prospect Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wasn’t necessarily opposed to, but that he objected to piggybacking on this bill. The Louisianan, who’s openly called for “transparency” on the matter, seemed annoyed at the flak the GOP took for trying to keep the two issues separate. 

“Republicans have been taking the incoming criticism because they voted to stop the Democrats’ politicization of this,” Johnson said, “[but] they’re trying to stick to their job and move their procedural rules to the floor so we can do our work and get the rescissions done for the American people.” 

In the end, the speaker did what he does best: compromised. Instead of hitching the spending cuts to the Epstein controversy, the House Rules Committee is putting a measure calling for the files’ release “on a parallel track.” That decision opened the doors to an early morning vote, 216-213, sending the legislation over the finish line and ending $8 billion in foreign aid waste and $1 billion in left-leaning public broadcasting.

In the meantime, the Democrats’ sudden interest in the issue did manage to raise some eyebrows. “Interesting how they talk about Jeffrey Epstein,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) argued on the floor, “because for four years … President Joe Biden had those files, and not a single Democrat that you’re hearing tonight tried to get those files released.” Even so, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-N.Y.) party still made a spectacle, at one point even chanting “Release the files!” during speeches. 

In the end, even the made-for-TV drama couldn’t overshadow what Republicans ultimately accomplished — which, depending on who you talk to, is either a gigantic accomplishment or an overhyped letdown. “This bill tonight is part of continuing that trend of getting spending under control,” Scalise messaged after midnight when the package finally passed. “Does it answer all the problems? No.” But he argued, “Nine billion dollars is a good start.”

His optimism was shared in the chamber that inexplicably preserved $400 million of Trump’s anti-woke targets. Despite knocking down the $9.4 billion request by almost a half-billion, senators like Eric Schmitt cheered. “I love $9 billion. You kidding me? In this town?” The Missourian nodded to the fact that this was the first time an administration had clawed back any spending since the turn of the century in 1999. “A lot of people have talked about this for a long time, and we’re on the cusp of actually delivering, and I think that’s an important step forward,” he noted. “There’s a lot more to do, but this is a big step.”

Schmitt’s Florida colleague Rick Scott (R-Fla.) admitted he’s easily pleased in this environment. “I’m happy with whatever we pass,” he told The Washington Times. “Spending is easy up here. Cutting is hard. So it’s just work. You’ve just got to keep after it.”

Others chimed in that this was just the beginning. “We’ll do more,” promised Senator John Hoeven (R-N.D.). Even so, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) wanted people to know, “I would like to do a lot more. But there’s hopes and wishes, and then there’s reality. This is our reality.”

On the House side, conservatives are less sanguine. Some, like Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), put the blame squarely on Thune’s shoulders for watering down what Johnson sent over. “The Senate does one thing better than anyone else in the nation, and that’s spend money,” he contended on Thursday’s “Washington Watch.” Guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice understood and noted, “It is a drop in the bucket when it comes to trying to cut back wasteful spending and so forth. But nonetheless,” Hice said, “it is a drop.”

Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.) breathed a heavy sigh just thinking about the mountain of debt Republicans need to climb to get America’s finances back on track. “There’s a lot of work we need to do,” he acknowledged to Hice on Friday’s show. “One out of [every] $5 that the federal government spends is borrowed. So we’ve got a lot of things we need to look at.” Still, he conceded, “the rescission package here was the first time in decades that a president has requested that discretionary spending be pulled back, that said, ‘Hey, we don’t need to spend everything that was appropriated a year or longer ago’ and focused on some specific areas.”

The Kansan ticked off some of the more egregious taxpayer abuses. “[W]e all heard earlier this year, all of the horror stories coming out of the USAID in terms of the money that was being wasted around the world. Things like $3 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam and $70,000 for a diversity, equity, and inclusion musical in Ireland. I mean, I don’t know why Ireland would want to have a DEI musical, but if they do,” he pointed out, “the Irish taxpayers ought to pay for it and not American taxpayers. And so, it was great to do this package. I’m glad to hear Speaker Johnson reiterate today that we need to be doing more of this.”

That’s good news for the conservatives who complained this legislation didn’t go nearly far enough. Kennedy, one of the few GOP senators who wasn’t satisfied with the cuts, told the press that he called on Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought to send more rescissions. “The budget director, he added, called him Wednesday morning and said,” according to Kennedy and Politico, “another is coming your way.”

“I’m ready to gobble them up,” the Louisianian said, before impersonating a turkey. “Gobble, gobble.”

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.