The Senate will not vote on billions in immigration enforcement money until after the Memorial Day recess, a dramatic shift in plans fueled by Republican discomfort over the Justice Department’s new “anti-weaponization” fund.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told Republicans on Thursday that a vote on the $70 billion in enforcement money had been canceled, according to a source familiar with the matter.
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The tentative plan had been to start a marathon voting session later that day, but the conference punted after a meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that lasted more than two hours. In that meeting, senators pressed Blanche over how the $1.776 billion fund, rolled out Monday to compensate victims of “lawfare,” would be structured and who would be eligible for the settlements. In particular, Republicans expressed concern payouts could go to individuals convicted or accused of assaulting U.S. Capitol Police on Jan. 6, 2021.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), one of the senators to object on those grounds, told reporters that Blanche “seemed” to say that would not be the case, but she wanted to see language to that effect and is part of a larger group of Republicans who feel the fund, controlled by a commission appointed by the president, needs more guardrails.
Blanche’s visit to the Capitol amounted to a last-ditch attempt to assuage those concerns ahead of a “vote-a-rama” planned for the immigration enforcement bill. The legislation was already on shaky ground due to $220 million in ballroom security money that Trump wanted to see attached, and Republicans soon began to insist that reconciliation, the party-line budget process they are using to skirt the filibuster, not move forward until the fund’s fate had been addressed as well.
On Thursday, Democrats reveled in the divisions and promised to force the matter if Republicans decided to proceed with a vote. They had already been portraying the ballroom funding as a presidential vanity project and were expected to bring forward an amendment that strips out the money. In terms of the “anti-weaponization” fund, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) alleged that Trump was setting up a “slush fund” to protect his political allies and teased that it, too, would be challenged on the Senate floor.
Reconciliation allows Republicans to pass the legislation without Democratic votes, but it also gives the minority a chance to offer an unlimited number of amendments, and more centrist Republicans had signaled that they might tank the entire bill regardless. Thune can afford to lose just three Republicans on any party-line vote.
“They’re just stuck, because they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” Schumer said. “They’re damned if they side with Trump, because the American people hate what Trump is doing, by and large. They’re damned if they side with the American people, because Trump goes after them, as we saw this week.”
Earlier in the day, the Justice Department sought to assure Senate Republicans that the president himself would not be eligible for the “lawfare” fund payouts, although Blanche did leave the door open to senators receiving compensation after their phone records were surveilled under the Biden administration.
Republicans said little about the impasse Thursday, even as the conversation with Blanche was clearly heated. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called the meeting “spirited,” and afterward, others pointed blame at the Justice Department for the immigration enforcement vote being delayed. Thune, visibly frustrated by the White House’s handling of the fund, told reporters it “would have been nice” had congressional leaders been consulted beforehand.
“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 a more complicated and bumpy path than we had hoped for,” Thune said.
THUNE: ‘I DON’T SEE A PURPOSE IN DOJ’S $1.776 BILLION ‘LAWFARE’ COMPENSATION FUND
A separate meeting between Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Trump was cancelled on Thursday as the time line for the immigration bill, which the president initially wanted on his desk by June 1, appeared to be slipping. The House was slated to stay in town after the Senate passed the legislation. Instead, Thune said his conference would now “get rolling” a week from this coming Monday, after the conclusion of the recess.
“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.
Hailey Bullis contributed to this report.
