Senate Republicans face a stark choice when they return from recess next week: back President Donald Trump’s controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to benefit his political allies or defy a commander-in-chief who just ended the careers of two Republican senators.
Nearly half of the 53-member Republican Senate majority balked at the issue during a heated two-hour meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche before the week-long Memorial Day break, forcing leadership to suspend plans to pass a $72 billion partisan bill to fund Trump’s immigration crackdown through the end of his presidency.
With Republican leaders now poised to vote on the measure to fund US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the party is pressing Trump’s Justice Department to agree on guardrails that could defuse Democratic plans to force repeated votes on amendments to derail the fund and embarrass the president.
“I would hope that Senate leadership is working with the administration and the Department of Justice to design something that’s going to work,” said Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin conservative who says he fully supports the fund. “My suggestion was, come up with an overriding amendment that will render all their amendments moot.”
