Republicans revolt over Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

By Ted Barrett, Manu Raju, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration’s push for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund derailed Senate Republicans’ plans to pass the president’s priority immigration enforcement package Thursday.

Senators left Washington for their Memorial Day recess with Republicans saying they were blindsided by the Justice Department’s announcement of the fund and at odds over how to rein it in.

The issue had become so toxic for the Senate GOP that there were doubts they could muster 50 votes needed to pass the broader bill that would provide tens of billions of dollars to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol. President Donald Trump had demanded the package land on his desk by June 1, but GOP lawmakers will now almost certainly miss that deadline.

It was just the latest example of the party’s revolt against Trump, whose separate request for $1 billion in US Secret Service funding and East Wing ballroom security also seemed likely to be stripped from the package in part because of GOP opposition.

The White House had put a full-court press on lawmakers to push the president’s priorities and even rerouted acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from a planned press conference on fraud in Minnesota to salvage the fund’s chances on Capitol Hill, where Republicans were weighing guardrails to the program.

But Blanche met the full force of Republican angst that had been brewing after Trump issued what many saw as an ill-timed endorsement against another one of their own in a critical midterm election year.

“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us. This is a place that operates, and there’s a political component to everything we do around here, so yeah, you can’t disconnect those things,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said of Trump’s political retribution tour against Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas that had roiled the party in recent days.

Meanwhile, at Justice Department headquarters, the backlash over Blanche’s deflated pitch left officials scrambling to think through their next steps as he made his way to the White House, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Frustration festered among officials — some of whom believe the idea originated in the White House — that Blanche was being left to take the blame, the sources said.

Those who worked on the settlement had tried to ensure that the agreement did not include any payment to Trump directly, but knew there would inevitably be backlash. “No one is that shocked,” one source said of the situation.

Thune told reporters he wasn’t given a heads up on the program and that it “would have been nice” if he had been consulted on it.

“And I think they probably would have gotten plenty of advice from lots of folks about it. But it’s water under the bridge now, and you play the hand you’re dealt and we’ll sort it out from here. But obviously it became more complicated and bumpy path than we hoped,” he said.

‘A galactic blunder’

During the private meeting with Blanche, several senators had warned that the party’s major immigration enforcement bill could be derailed with the issue of the fund hanging over them, according to a person familiar with the matter, and hardly any members spoke up in the meeting to defend it.

And in a sign of the trouble ahead, Sen. Susan Collins, the top Senate appropriator, told CNN that Blanche hadn’t convinced her to support it.

“I do not support the weaponization fund as it has been described,” Collins, who faces a tough reelection in November, said ahead of the meeting. “I do not believe individuals that were convicted of violence against police officers on Jan. 6 should be entitled to reimbursement of their legal fees.”

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis also threatened to vote against the party’s reconciliation bill if it included the fund, calling suggested changes to the broader immigration package “gimmicks that are coming in at the 11th hour.”

“Under what circumstances would it ever make sense to provide restitution for people who were either pled guilty or were found guilty in a court of law? You want to talk about maybe providing restitution for people who weren’t found guilty? Fine, but if you do this, why not for the poor, mostly peaceful prospect protesters in Kenosha, in Portland?” the outgoing senator said of the fund.

“I mean, my God, do you see where this would head? These people don’t deserve restitution; they, many of them deserve to be in prison. Some of them deserve the pardon because they were over prosecuted, but this is – I mean, this is just stupid on stilts.”

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell similarly castigated the acting attorney general’s pitch to lawmakers. “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick,” he said.

It all amounted to what Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson criticized as a major misstep by the Justice Department, which had unveiled the compensation fund on Monday as lawmakers were seeking to move expeditiously on the broader immigration package before their pre-scheduled departure.

“Somebody described it as a galactic blunder, and I think that’s probably true,” Johnson, one of the few Republicans who have publicly supported the fund, said of the decision to link it in anyway to ICE and border patrol funding.

Earlier in the day, the Justice Department had attempted to cast the fund as an accountability effort, circulating a fact sheet outlining who could apply for compensation. The fact sheet, which was viewed by CNN, noted that senators whose records were subpoenaed by the Biden administration Justice Department could seek compensation.

But it appeared to do little to quell GOP lawmakers’ concerns and left Senate Democrats planning to seize on the Republican dysfunction by preparing amendments to the package that would put their colleagues on the spot.

Ultimately, the Senate impasse prompted the White House to scrap a planned meeting between Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson about the funding package, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, and the House canceled its Friday votes.

The president was asked in the Oval Office earlier in the day whether he had lost control of Senate Republicans amid their resistance.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I can tell you, I only do what’s right,” he said.

Johnson would not say whether the Trump administration should drop the controversial fund when pressed by CNN later Thursday.

“It’s not my call. We’re waiting to see what the Senate sends us. They’re working through that,” the Republican leader said.

Pressed again, he added, “I’ll process whatever the Senate sends me. And they need obviously a little bit more time to build consensus. So that’s what they’ve decided to do.”

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz, Lauren Fox, Alison Main, Ellis Kim and Annie Grayer contributed to this report.