New populist Republican Party strips pediatric cancer research funds from funding bill

OUTFLANKED again!

Thanks to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Republicans cut $190 million for pediatric cancer research from the funding bill. Congrats to DOGE on their first victory.

[image or embed]— Sawyer Hackett (@sawyerhackett.bsky.social) December 19, 2024 at 1:43 PM

And needless to say, de facto President-elect Musk was able to get his full beak in the trough:

White House leans into 2 things deleted from the funding bill: -restrictions on outbound investment in China -reforms to pharmacy benefit managers to lower drug prices Both are strong bipartisan agreements. Trump's shielding Musk's investments in Chinese factories and UnitedHealth's profits

[image or embed]— David Dayen (@ddayen.bsky.social) December 19, 2024 at 3:24 PM

As of now, the Democrats seem to be playing this properly (i.e. you want to shut down the government to help Elon and hurt kids with cancer that’s your problem.) And for whatever reason government shutdowns are the one area where the political press is willing to ascribe agency to Republicans.

UPDATE: the Elon/Trump Pro-Cancer bill fails:

Republicans fail to pass a bill to keep the government open that they negotiated with themselves after detonating a bipartisan deal that they had negotiated with Democrats

[image or embed]— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) December 19, 2024 at 4:04 PM