GOP senators revolted against the settlement before leaving for a Memorial Day recess.
FILE – Rioters storm the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. revolted against the settlement before leaving for a Memorial Day recess two weeks ago say they want more information from the administration about the future of the fund, which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and.
Meanwhile, Trump is reconsidering whether to move forward with it at all, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Caught in the middle is legislation that would fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies for three years.
Republicans abruptly left town without passing it after Democrats said they would offer amendments to scrap or scale back the judgment fund, forcing Republicans to go on the record for or against it and endangering the money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Returning to Washington on Monday evening, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wasn’t sure if the immigration spending bill would move this week.comes after Trump announced the fund with no heads up to lawmakers as part of a settlement to resolve hisover the leak of his tax returns.
When word of the settlement broke, the Senate was navigating tricky passage of the immigration legislation with an Furious, Senate Republicans jettisoned the White House security money from the bill and made clear they would not pass the legislation at all unless the White House made major changes to the settlement.
“I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Thune told reporters Monday, referring to the fund. He said Republicans will have a better idea of how to proceed after they meet for their weekly conference lunch on Tuesday. FILE – Supporters of President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.
who temporarily halted the fund for two weeks. The judge scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend her order. Republican senators weren’t satisfied. They said Monday evening that they need more detail from the administration on what happens after that deadline before deciding next steps.
“It’s pretty clear that the president has to say very explicitly that there’s not going to be a weaponization fund,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Lankford said Trump administration officials “need to say what they actually mean. ”Alaska Sen.
Lisa Murkowski said that if the settlement is “completely pulled, then I’m satisfied. But I haven’t heard anybody say that. ” Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said the administration already has to abide by the court decision, “that’s in the Constitution.
I have to know more about their position. ” “Right now, the reconciliation bill looks like a broken arm with the bones sticking out,” Kennedy said.
“It won’t move this week, in my opinion, unless we have some resolution on the weaponization account. ”that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas described on a recent episode of his podcast as “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.
” GOP senators had been discussing several ways that they could curb the fund, including limiting who can receive payouts, changing the makeup of the commission in charge of settlement decisions, adding some sort of judicial review for applicants or scrapping the fund altogether. Amid the backlash, a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking, said Monday that Trump was reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund.
But the president has not said publicly what he intends to do. Also complicating matters is Trump’s campaign-year push to defeat GOP lawmakers whom he sees as disloyal, including some of Thune’s most reliable Republican votes in the narrow 53-47 Senate.both lost reelection bids in May after Trump endorsed their primary opponents, and it’s unclear how supportive they’ll be of the president’s agenda going forward.
“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” Thune said before the Senate left town.
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