Biden's State Department put The Blaze on a federal disinformation blacklist next to Russian media.
Congress defunded the agency – so Biden renamed it and kept it running.
House Republicans just found the one move that shuts it down for good.
How the Bill Defunds Biden's Censorship Industrial Complex
H.R. 8595 – the FY2027 national security and State Department appropriations bill, reported out of committee April 30 – names exactly what Biden's censorship apparatus did and strips the money from each tactic.
Page 252 bars any appropriated funds from being used to "deplatform, deboost, demonetize, suppress, or otherwise penalize" online speech, social media activity, or news content that would be lawful under US law.
That language catches the obvious moves – a federal agency calling a platform and demanding a post come down – and the methods that did the real damage quietly.
Federal money cannot flow to research outfits that pressure advertisers to abandon publishers, or fund brand-safety programs that attach "disinformation" labels to conservative news sites.
And Federal money cannot support any operation designed to impose "legal, regulatory, financial, reputational, commercial, or political costs" on American platforms or digital publishers for carrying First Amendment protected speech.
The Global Disinformation Index operated for years on exactly that model – federally funded, blacklisting conservative outlets, handing those lists to ad buyers who then pulled spending.
That money is gone if this bill becomes law.
The Global Disinformation Index Blacklist Scheme Loses Its Funding
The most consequential provision in H.R. 8595 targets the routing trick Biden's operation perfected.
The cleaner method was outsourcing the pressure to foreign governments and supranational bodies – letting Brussels or London write the speech restrictions, then importing those restrictions back through global compliance regimes.
The EU's Digital Services Act and the UK's Online Safety Act were built with American diplomatic encouragement, then used to suppress speech by American citizens.
H.R. 8595 makes that maneuver illegal to fund.
Federal appropriations cannot support foreign laws, regulations, or enforcement mechanisms that punish US platforms for carrying speech that would be lawful here.
The international laundering operation – the one that let American bureaucrats point at foreign regulators and claim clean hands – runs into a funding wall.
How Republicans Are Making Trump's Free Speech Executive Order Permanent
Page 98 does something an executive order alone cannot do.
It writes Trump's Executive Order 14149 – "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship" – directly into appropriations law.
Executive orders last as long as the president who signed them.
Appropriations restrictions survive administrations.
The next Democrat who wins the White House and wants to rebuild the GEC will need Congress to actively vote to restore the censorship budget – with every member's name attached to that vote.
A separate provision on page 99 builds specific protection around American media and news companies.
Federal funds cannot be used to push for censorship of their social media content, to influence advertiser behavior toward them, or to brand US independent news organizations as producers of "disinformation, misinformation, or malinformation."
Those three words powered the machine.
Once the GEC or one of its contractor networks labeled an outlet a disinformation source, the cascade was automatic – algorithmic suppression, ad network exits, payment processor nervousness.
H.R. 8595 defunds the labeling operation.
Biden Shut Down the GEC and Restarted It Under a Different Name
Biden's people thought defunding was the worst Republicans could do to them.
The GEC ran a $61 million-a-year operation it insisted was aimed at foreign adversaries.
House Judiciary investigators documented how CISA and the GEC used Stanford University's Election Integrity Partnership as a pass-through – routing removal requests for American citizens' political speech directly to Big Tech while maintaining distance from the paper trail.
The Blaze showed up on a GEC-funded disinformation propagators list next to Sputnik News.
Ben Shapiro said GDI's blacklist scheme cost his organization millions in lost advertising.
When Congress defunded the GEC in late 2024, Biden's State Department transferred its staff to a new office called the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Office and kept the operation running.
H.R. 8595 is written to close that door.
The provisions are specific enough – naming tactics, funding flows, and mechanisms by line item – that there is no new name that gets around them.
The bill now heads to the full House.
Democrats will have to vote yes or vote to keep the censorship money flowing – and Republicans just made sure there is no middle option.
Sources:
- Dan Frieth, "House Bill Cuts Federal Funds for Online Censorship," Reclaim The Net, May 2, 2026.
- "President Trump Signs Chairman Díaz-Balart's FY26 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Bill into Law," Office of Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, February 4, 2026.
- House Judiciary Committee Republicans, "New Report Reveals CISA Tried to Cover Up Censorship Practices," September 27, 2024.
- House Judiciary Committee Republicans, "New Report Details How the Federal Government Partnered with Universities to Censor Americans' Speech," September 27, 2024.
- Margot Cleveland, "The Federalist Scored A Huge Win For Free Speech – And Exposed More Of The Censorship Industrial Complex," The Federalist, April 1, 2026.
