'These are children': GOP blinks amid outrage over slashing 'lifesaving' program

Republicans have reissued cuts made in the 2026 budget bill that would have ended funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. However, on Tuesday, Republicans announced that they would pass another bill stopping the cuts. It would reinstate the full $9 billion in funding in the budget.

The Huffington Post's Igor Bobic quoted Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) telling reporters, “I don’t see it getting back in," meaning the cuts wouldn't return.

Semafor congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett confirmed, "OMB Director Russ Vought says that the PEPFAR cuts will not be included in the final recissions package."

There was a huge uprising from those who had fought for funding to help fight HIV/AIDS transmission. U2 lead singer Bono, who has been a big part of the PEPFAR program, responded to the cuts by asking, "Who would want that on their conscience? I mean, cutting jobs or whatever DOGE does. These are not job losses. These are life losses. These are children.”

"We’re all trying to do calculations. Bill Gates says a million children will die,” Bono said in an interview in Cannes.

Gates added his voice to the ire, saying in a post on X, "The devastating effects of these cuts are entirely preventable—and it’s not too late to reverse them."

The week before, Gates said that the funding cuts had already killed people.

"A lot of cuts are being made in foreign aid programs,” he said during an address in Ethiopia in June. “Some of those cuts are being made so abruptly that there are complete interruptions in trials, or medicines are still sitting in warehouses and are not available. And these cuts are something that I think are a huge mistake.”

Similarly, the George W. Bush Presidential Center executive director told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the program, founded in 2003, has saved the lives of "26 million people and allowed nearly 8 million babies to be born HIV-free."