Bill Cassidy

WASHINGTON – U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday afternoon that President Donald Trump agreed to drop his demands for $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to allow Republican leadership to shoulder through legislation to pay for deportations until 2030 without any restrictions on the federal officers carrying out immigration laws.

“I believe that it is off the table for consideration,” Johnson, R-Benton, told reporters about the fund after GOP leaders spent much of the day grappling with how to secure money for immigration enforcement in a way that Democrats cannot block. Democrats oppose funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection without also adding some controls over the federal officers, such as wearing body cams and badges and removing their masks.

A key hurdle was the proposed fund to set aside $1.776 billion to compensate people who felt they were targeted by the Biden Department of Justice. A panel with five members, four of them appointed by the president, would decide who got paid and how much they would receive.

Johnson visited Trump on Monday in the White House to discuss the problems the fund, which critics saw as a way to compensate MAGA allies, creates when trying to find enough votes with such narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

“I told him that it was a difficult prospect right now, given our vote tallies,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday.

A number of Republican senators opposed the idea. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, is one.

“We shouldn’t care for that because it’s got poor oversight,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy said he did not like the possibility that participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol could get paid.

“So somebody beats up a police officer and would get money,” Cassidy said Tuesday.

He noted that one of the Jan. 6 defendants was pardoned by Trump for firing a gun and was arrested in October on charges of drugging, kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman.

“I ain’t voting for that, and I think there's a lot of other people who are really concerned about that,” Cassidy said.

Tying up budget strategy

Using a once-rare procedure called reconciliation, additional money can be added to an annual spending plan with a simple majority of the House and Senate.

The Senate, which had planned to vote on the reconciliation bill Wednesday, does not have the support among Republicans to reach the 51 votes needed – largely because of Trump’s anti-weaponization fund, said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota.

Thune said keeping the bill’s language specifically limited to immigration enforcement funding not only would bring along wary Republicans, but limit the number of changes that opponents would try to add during the handful of votes by the full Senate – called “vote-a-rama” on Capitol Hill – that are required for reconciliation.

“Confining the bill to its original intent, which was a very narrowly focused reconciliation bill that just addresses the funding for (immigration enforcement), is the clearest path to ultimately getting a bill on the president’s desk,” Thune said.

The 100-seat Senate has 53 Republicans. If everyone shows up to vote and Democrats don’t waiver, Thune can only lose three Republicans, provided Vice President JD Vance is available to vote.

Trump backed the opponent of incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, who, like Cassidy, lost in the party primary. And incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican decided not to seek reelection.

But even Republican senators who have faithfully followed Trump’s dictates are raising questions about the fund that was part of a settlement in a lawsuit by the Trump family against the Internal Revenue Service.

After Johnson’s Monday meeting with Trump, the Department of Justice announced it is pausing creation of the fund until a court ruled on June 12 and the administration would follow that ruling.

“Just saying we’re going to follow the order doesn’t tell me about their position on the weaponization fund,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-Madisonville, told reporters Monday. He likened the effort to include the fund with the reconciliation process “looks like a broken arm with the bone sticking out.”

After senators met to discuss reconciliation over lunch Tuesday, Kennedy said he and others would watch the testimony of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche before the House Appropriations committee that was scheduled to begin a few hours later.

“We are not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche told the House Appropriations Committee

“Ever?” asked Rep. Grace Meng, D-New York.

“Ever,” Blanche said. “We’re not moving forward with the fund.”