WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A standoff between the White House and the Senate remains unresolved after Republican senators\u00a0defiantly left town 10 days ago\u00a0without passing legislation to fund President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n
Senate Republicans who are returning to Washington on Monday say they won\u2019t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on a new\u00a0$1.776 billion settlement fund\u00a0designed to compensate Trump\u2019s allies. But Trump has shown little interest in doing so, even after a judge\u00a0temporarily halted any payouts.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear how they will settle the dispute.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration is \u201cgoing to have to come up with some suggestions and ideas,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune said before the Senate left town on May 21. Thune, of South Dakota, said that the settlement money \u2014 some of which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and\u00a0attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021\u00a0\u2014 \u201cjust makes everything way harder than it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The impasse over the \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund could be an inflection point as Republicans try to keep their majority in this year\u2019s elections and advance their agenda. Trump\u2019s campaign year push to defeat GOP lawmakers who he sees as disloyal, including some of Thune\u2019s most reliable Republican votes in the narrow 53-47 Senate, has only added to the tension.<\/p>\n
Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana\u00a0and\u00a0John Cornyn of Texas\u00a0both lost reelection in May after Trump endorsed their primary opponents, and it is unclear how supportive they will be of the president\u2019s agenda going forward. And a growing number of GOP senators have become\u00a0frustrated with the president\u00a0as he ignores what they see as their political needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what\u2019s happening in the political atmosphere around us,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n
Democrats have said they plan to offer several amendments to the immigration bill to scale back or eliminate the settlement. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a letter to colleagues Monday morning that Democrats will launch \u201ca coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote on it,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
As anger among Senate Republicans swelled, Trump made clear that he wasn\u2019t highly concerned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care about the midterms,\u201d Trump said last week in\u00a0a discussion about the Iran war.<\/p>\n
At a closed-door meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche before they left town, Republican senators gave an ultimatum of sorts \u2014 put some limits on the settlement or we will do it for you.<\/p>\n
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. Republicans have discussed adding parameters on the settlement to the unrelated immigration enforcement measure but would prefer that the White House make changes on its own.<\/p>\n
There were few sings of progress over the Memorial Day recess.<\/p>\n
Sen. Todd Young of Indiana told The Associated Press last week that he hadn\u2019t seen any indications \u201cthat would suggest they sent us a plan that our leadership thought was acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in their court,\u201d Young said of the White House.<\/p>\n
Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee said on Fox New Channel’s \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d that there are discussions underway \u201cto get to something that\u2019s going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there were just more details and more questions last week that needed to be resolved,\u201d Hagerty said, adding that \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to seeing the details this coming week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blanche told the AP in an interview Thursday that \u201ca lot of the questions will be answered in the short term.\u201d But he would not elaborate, saying that \u201ctalking in hypotheticals is something that I don\u2019t think is fair to the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
The acting attorney general\u2019s meeting with senators before they left town was \u201cangry,\u201d according to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who described it on his podcast. Cruz said that of around 45 Senate Republicans who attended, \u201cat least half of them were blasting the attorney general.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Senate had planned to stay in session late that night to vote on the immigration spending bill, but leaders canceled votes and sent everyone home. Cruz said Republican senators were \u201cyelling\u201d and told Blanche that the fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves Trump\u2019s\u00a0lawsuit against the IRS\u00a0over the leak of his tax returns, \u201cfeels like self-dealing” and “feels like Trump cut a deal with himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz, who said he supports the fund, noted that Democrats had said they would offer amendments to kill it. Republicans “would have lost every vote\u201d if they had stayed in session, he said.<\/p>\n
He predicted that \u201cwe will see the administration announcing at a minimum a modification of this, because if they don\u2019t, they\u2019ve got a full-on revolt in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz said that there were a lot of questions from senators about the Jan. 6 defendants and that Blanche reassured them that no one who committed an act of violence or assaulted law enforcement would get a payout. But Blanche has repeatedly declined to say that publicly, telling the AP that \u201cthere is no limit to who can apply.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about people who were violent on Jan. 6, Blanche suggested that might be too hard to define.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is it? I mean, you tell me, right?\u201d Blanche said. \u201cYou have to define something and then stick to it. So that\u2019s something I\u2019ve been hesitant to try to do because it\u2019s very fact intensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has pardoned more than 1,500 defendants who were charged and prosecuted in the 2021 attack, including hundreds who were convicted for\u00a0violently beating and injuring police\u00a0as they broke into the Capitol.<\/p>\n
The divide over the fund comes after Republicans already abandoned\u00a0$1 billion in security funding\u00a0for the White House, including for\u00a0Trump\u2019s new ballroom, as Democrats and\u00a0some Republicans\u00a0questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project at a time of economic hardship. Besides the settlement, Democrats had planned to force Republican senators to vote for or against the ballroom money.<\/p>\n
Left in the legislation is funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked for months in protest of the administration\u2019s\u00a0immigration enforcement crackdown.<\/p>\n
Republicans are\u00a0using a complicated budget maneuver\u00a0called reconciliation to fund the agencies through the end of Trump\u2019s term without Democratic support. Still, success requires GOP unity and Trump\u2019s eventual signature.<\/p>\n
Democrats say they hope that their Republican colleagues continue to stand up to the White House. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan said last week that he thinks the settlement fund is \u201dprobably one of the most corrupt things that we\u2019ve ever seen an American president do.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is \u201ca bridge too far for some of my Republican Senate colleagues,\u201d Peters said. “I hope they realize that what was done is simply unacceptable and that they\u2019ll stand firm.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writers Steven Sloan and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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