WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans abandoned plans to vote on a bill to fund immigration enforcement operations Thursday in an act of revolt over one of President Donald Trump's priorities: a $1.8 billion fund for victims of government "weaponization," including those convicted of crimes during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Senate walked away from a planned vote on a $72 billion bill funding Trump's massive migrant deportation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, delaying the vote at least until June, when lawmakers return from a one-week Memorial Day holiday recess.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters Tuesday after the Republicans' weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington.
From the beginning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the legislation should be narrowly targeted to secure the $72 billion. But at Trump's behest, the $1.8 billion "weaponization" fund and another $1 billion for building a White House ballroom became major sticking points.
People are also reading…
“It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean, straightforward, and it got a little bit more complicated this week," Thune said. “It makes everything way harder than it should be.”
The battle over the partisan ICE funding bill came on the heels of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana losing his primary election to a Trump-backed challenger and the president endorsing the primary challenger to veteran Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.
Presidents usually back their party's incumbents. Republicans said Trump's opposition to Cassidy and Cornyn added to the mood of acrimony surrounding the debate.
"He's lost some support in the Senate," said Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, who predicted that Senate Republicans would have to impose limits on Trump's fund, which the Justice Department announced as part of a deal between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service.
"He's the plaintiff and the boss of the defendants. So just on the surface, it smells," he said.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche exits a meeting Thursday with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Blanche summoned
Against that backdrop, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche was summoned to Capitol Hill to face questions from angry senators when he made his case for the $1.8 billion fund designed to compensate Trump allies and other victims of government "weaponization."
During Blanche's meeting, several senators insisted the money not be used to compensate people convicted of assaulting law enforcement during the Capitol riot, the person said.
Trump already pardoned many of those convicted for crimes they committed during that deadly assault.
"I think there are people who are concerned about public relations," Senator Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, told reporters about the meeting.
Emotions were so raw that a planned White House meeting between Trump, Senate Republicans and House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson was canceled, according to a source familiar with the arrangement.
Supporters of President Donald Trump clash with Capitol police Jan. 6, 2021, during a riot at the US Capitol in Washington.
Ballroom funding
The resistance against Trump became evident late Wednesday when Senate Republicans said "no" to $1 billion in new security funding for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom Trump wants to build on the site of the White House East Wing that he razed last October.
For months, Trump claimed no taxpayer money would be needed for the project. Nonetheless, a $1 billion tab to be picked up by taxpayers stared senators in the face as an add-in to a $72 billion bill for Trump's migrant deportation program.
Bacon said the White House failed to communicate that most of the $1 billion ballroom money would fund needed security upgrades across the White House complex.
"The ballroom was rolled out so badly that I'm not sure it can be recovered in the near term," he said.
Democrats hammered away about a "glitzy," "gauzy," "vanity project," a preview of their midterm election pitch addressing voters' worries about the high prices of food, housing, healthcare and particularly gasoline, which skyrocketed after the Feb. 28 U.S. attack on Iran.
President Donald Trump speaks at the site of ongoing construction of the planned White House ballroom Tuesday in Washington.
Thune, who started the week with a tense phone call with the president over his endorsement against Cornyn, told reporters after Thursday's meeting that his party "will pick up where we left off" after the holiday recess.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is not running for reelection, did not hold back in criticizing Trump.
"I think it's stupid on stilts," Tillis said of the "weaponization" fund in an interview with Spectrum News. "The American people are going to reject this out of hand."
