A series of Trump administration moves has shaken up Republicans’ complex plan to finally end the lapse in funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans’ appetite for the bill soured this week as their concerns grew about a $1.8 billion fund to pay people who claimed to be victims of politically motivated government probes. The settlement added to senators’ hesitations about providing money to secure a ballroom at the White House.
Leadership in both chambers ended up sending their members home ahead of schedule, abandoning plans to quickly move what should have been an easy legislative win for the majority party.
“It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean, straightforward, and it got a little bit more complicated this week,” Majority Leader
The president’s endorsements against incumbent Republican senators also haven’t helped, Thune suggested.
“It’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” Thune said.
The breakdown bodes poorly for Republicans’ plans to enact more of their policy priorities before they potentially lose control of one or both chambers of Congress in midterm elections that will serve as a referendum on Trump’s second term in office.
‘Weaponization’ Fund
The latest cracks emerged after Judiciary Chairman
That decision opened the bill up for Democrats to offer amendments on the department’s contentious settlement fund that would only need a simple majority to succeed. The Department of Justice announced the fund earlier this week in exchange for Trump dropping his lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.
“We felt that this corruption was so vile that we were going to do everything we can in reconciliation to try to get it undone,” said Senate Minority Leader
The prospect of taking politically fraught votes on the fund added to Republicans’ already mounting concerns about a legal deal between two government agencies Trump oversees.
“It’s unprecedented to see a settlement between two parties that seem to be the same person,” Sen.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche canceled a trip to Minneapolis Thursday, where he was planning to join an announcement of fraud charges alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and trekked to Capitol Hill.
In a wood-paneled Senate dining room next to a bust of Richard Nixon, Blanche sought to assure lawmakers the president and his sons would not financially benefit from the fund, but that some senators themselves could.
Blanche also told senators that “not a single dime” of reconciliation money “would go toward anything having to do with” the settlement fund, according to a DOJ spokesperson.
The bill’s $1.5 billion for the Justice Department is geared toward its counterterrorism work, the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI investigations, and the new National Fraud Enforcement Division.
“There was a healthy discussion on the settlement,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue to work with the Senate to get critical reconciliation funds approved.”
Jan. 6 Concerns
Senate Republicans offered several criticisms of the fund, with some senators wanting to restrict eligibility or impose other guardrails, and others suggesting they do away with it altogether.
Senators sought assurances in particular that those who stormed the Capitol and assaulted officers on Jan. 6, 2021 would not benefit from the fund.
“I did raise that issue, and that seemed to be what he was saying, but we haven’t seen language,” Sen.
Sen.
“The leader decided the better thing is to get these questions answered and come back and deal with this when we come back in June,” Capito said.
After the meeting, Thune said members need to “get some clarity” before proceeding and “hopefully” plan to move forward as soon as they return from the recess. He said a legislative proposal that could place guardrails would be “one option,” but they are still working through it.
Thune said Blanche “took it all in stride” in the meeting and has “an appreciation for the depth of feeling on the issue.” The South Dakota Republican said it “would have been nice” if lawmakers were consulted in advance of announcing the fund – which made the path “more complicated and bumpy.”
Ballroom Undermined
Even before the settlement between the IRS and Trump came to light, senators were wrangling over a separate provision that would have seeded the Secret Service with $1 billion.
Trips by that agency’s director, Sean Curran, to both sides of the Capitol last week to explain how it planned to spend the money did little to assuage lawmakers’ concerns about the optics of contributing funding to Trump’s proposed construction of a ballroom at the White House.
Republicans were already rewriting the measure in the face of guidance from the Senate parliamentarian that the language surrounding the White House security funding violated the chamber’s rules.
That provision’s fate may have been sealed at a federal courthouse a few miles away.
The Justice Department has argued in Washington federal court that the entire ballroom is critical to national security and the safety of future presidents.
That position complicated Republicans’ plans to fund security improvements by undermining the pitch that it was budgetary in nature, rather than an apparent approval of a project that a judge has said requires congressional authorization. The procedure Republicans are using to pass their party-line bill can only be used for provisions affecting revenue and spending.
The White House “is its own worst enemy since they’ve argued in court that the whole building is security related,” said one Senate aide familiar with the process.
House Recesses
Even if Senate Republicans had cobbled together a deal, it still needed to be passed by the House, where Republicans were already discussing the possibility of leaving town before the Senate threw in the towel.
If the Senate hadn’t sent the bill over until Friday evening or later, multiple lawmakers told Bloomberg Government they’d heard the House might leave for its Memorial Day recess and pass the bill when it came back on June 2.
“There’s no emergency about doing it by June 1st, except the president had thrown that date out,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman
House GOP leaders, who hold a slim majority, struggle with attendance at the best of times and spent the week facing questions about whether members would show up ahead of the holiday.
Harris said members have campaign and personal events in their districts this weekend, which could have affected attendance the longer the wait for a reconciliation package dragged on.
One lawmaker told Bloomberg Government that several members had already left for previously planned events but would have returned for critical votes if needed.
Even as the GOP’s second party-line reconciliation bill fell apart in the Senate, House leaders and committee chairmen met about reconciliation 3.0 — a planned legislative push that some lawmakers are doubtful can pass before its August goal.
“We’re very bullish about it,” Johnson said of the third reconciliation bill, less than five minutes before senators across the Capitol told reporters they were going home without passing the second. “We’re going to get some great policy through.”