Trump ‘slush fund’ a flashpoint as Senate leaves without funding DHS

Congress will leave Washington this week without approving a package that would fund immigration enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, as tensions simmered over a recently announced $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that could provide payouts to allies of President Donald Trump.

The Senate was originally planning to start considering the package Thursday, potentially sending it to the House to take up before both chambers are slated to take a one-week recess. But plans were paused after a meeting at the Capitol with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was dispatched on Thursday to brief Republican senators on the fund. Some were not satisfied.

“I think we need to get some clarity about how this is going to work,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters, according to MS NOW.

“Hopefully when we get back a week from Monday we can get right on it and get rolling,” he said of the broader funding effort, which was intended to make up money for immigration enforcement that wasn’t included in an earlier Department of Homeland Security funding bill. “It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean straightforward. And it got a little bit more complicated this week.”

The punt means Congress will miss the arbitrary June 1 deadline Trump had set for final passage of the package. The House canceled votes on Friday, and a trip Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had planned to take to the White House on Thursday to talk about the funding effort was called off.

Democrats said the episode was a sign of Republican dysfunction.

“This afternoon Republicans, so divided, so dysfunctional, so disorganized, are fleeing Washington,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a press conference. “Republicans are in complete disarray, they’re at each other throats and the American people are suffering for it.”

The move forestalls what would have been a marathon series of votes.

Schumer said Democrats had planned to use a Senate procedure — known as a vote-a-rama — to introduce amendments and force Republicans to weigh in on politically fraught topics, like Trump’s proposed White House ballroom and the anti-weaponization fund, which could be used to pay out people purportedly targeted by the Biden administration, potentially including Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants.

Republicans had hoped to kickstart the process on the Senate floor to pass the $72 billion budget package that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Security. Democrats have refused to fund both DHS subagencies in response to two civilian deaths at the hands of federal agents during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January, setting off a monthslong partial government shutdown.

In April, Congress passed and Trump signed a law to fund the rest of the agency, effectively ending the partial shutdown, as Republicans sought to make up funding for ICE and CBP via the budget reconciliation process.

Under budget reconciliation, the Senate has only a 50-vote threshold for clearing legislation, but it’s only allowed to be used for spending-related measures.

But cracks emerged this week over a series of Trump priorities.

For one, intraparty divisions arose over whether to include taxpayer funds for security upgrades tied to his proposed White House ballroom. The Senate parliamentarian ruled last week that a $1 billion Secret Service provision for the project could not be included the the package, though Senate Republicans initially indicated they would restructure the language and try again.

Trump raged at the parliamentarian, a nonpartisan official who advises on Senate procedures, and demanded her firing in a post to TruthSocial. But by Wednesday, anger about the ballroom funding was growing amid the ranks, and Politico reported it would likely be cut from the reconciliation bill, in a blow to Trump.

According to a memo obtained by MS NOW, $220 million of the $1 billion Secret Service provision would have gone toward the East Wing ballroom project, while the rest would pay for other Secret Service security measures. Trump has said the ballroom will be paid for using private funds.

“The ballroom is paid for, it’s a gift,” he said during an announcement on Thursday from the Oval Office. “The money that they’re spending is for security, having to do maybe around the ballroom and other parts of the house, but this is not for the ballroom.”

But the “anti-weaponization” fund, announced this week as part of Trump’s settlement with the Internal Revenue Service, was the flashpoint.

“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the President and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who lost his bid for reelection in a Republican primary last weekend after Trump backed one of his opponents, posted to X on Wednesday.

“This is adding to our national debt. If there needs to be a settlement, the administration should bring it to Congress to decide,” Cassidy said.

While Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers, will have little power to stop the package Republicans ultimately agree on, they said they would seize all opportunities to hammer their GOP colleagues on rising costs and the alleged corruption of the Trump administration whenever the package does come to the floor.

“Democrats are cracking down on corruption in government. Republicans are actively helping Trump steal from the American people to fund his ballroom and his multi-billion dollar MAGA slush fund,” Schumer said Thursday.

—Emily Wilkins contributed to this story.