Senate Republicans had already grown vocal in their opposition to President Donald Trump’s unprecedented $1.8 billion fund to compensate alleged victims of Justice Department “weaponization” during the Biden years. After a nearly two-hour meeting Thursday with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that participants described as “incredibly hostile,” their opposition hardened — and the reasons why became clearer.
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) spoke with CNN’s Manu Raju on Thursday, and denounced the legislative strategy behind the $1.8 billion fund — but not the fund itself.
“Ron Johnson told me the Trump administration should have focused on getting ICE/CBP bill passed and the decision to unveil $1.8B fund now (when they’re trying to pass the bill) was a giant mistake,” Raju reported.
“Somebody described it as a galactic blunder, and I think that’s probably true,” Johnson told the CNN anchor.
“Similar sentiment among GOP leadership,” the Washington Examiner’s Ramsey Touchberry added, “who feel [the] situation is a mess of the admin’s own making and Blanche meeting/WH guidance on anti-weaponization fund made it worse, per source.”
“Lots of frustration among Senate Republicans over the timing of the anti-weaponization fund — and the fund itself,” the Washington Post’s Riley Beggin noted. “One GOP aide told me about half of Senate Rs don’t like it.”
Mediaite notes that “NOTUS’s Reese Gorman reported on the Republicans not being ‘happy’ with the Trump administration over the fund, which critics are slamming as a massive ‘slush fund’ to pay Trump allies and donors.”
“They have f—— this up on too many levels to count,” a senior GOP Senate aide told Gorman, Mediaite reports. “The only thing more toxic than demanding taxpayers foot the bill for a billion-dollar ballroom is demanding taxpayers give billions of dollars to J6 rioters.”
Axios adds that U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told reporters that the $1.8 billion fund was dropped like “a bomb in the middle of a pretty well planned out reconciliation bill.”
Politico reported Thursday that Blanche had struggled “to quash GOP concerns” surrounding the fund. “Blanche met privately with Senate Republicans as the administration and GOP leaders tried to defuse the controversy over the fund.”
