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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans appeared increasingly unlikely to meet their self-imposed deadline for passing a roughly $70 billion immigration enforcement bill this week as disputes over security funding for the White House and the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion settlement fund effectively derailed progress.
Republicans were already expected to abandon $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom amid backlash from members of their own party. But then questions about the settlement fund added to some of the senator’s concerns. They are questioning who would get the money.
Republican senators met with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday as they worked to finalize the bill’s text and whether to put parameters on the settlement, which was designed to compensate Trump’s allies who believe they have been politically persecuted. Thune told reporters that senators had questions and wanted to know “how we might make sure that it’s fenced in appropriately.”
But senators who emerged from the meeting were tight-lipped and indicated that lawmakers would not hold a vote on the package before leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break, risking failure to meet Trump’s June 1 deadline.
Asked about a vote this week, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, responded, “I don’t even know.” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., was more blunt: “We’re going home,” he said.
The last-minute scramble comes as Democrats have criticized Republicans for trying to fund Trump’s ballroom when voters are concerned about basic affordability issues — and as some GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump. Several GOP senators have spoken out against the settlement, which was announced this week, and many were upset by the president’s endorsement Tuesday of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the party primary runoff next week against Sen. John Cornyn.
Asked Thursday at the White House if he was losing control of the Senate, Trump replied: “I don’t know, I really don’t know. I can tell you — I only do what’s right.”
Possible parameters on Trump’s settlement fund
The “anti-weaponization” fund, part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, unexpectedly became one of the main complications in the bill. Democrats said they would force votes to block it or place restrictions on it.
Democrats have an opening because Republicans are trying to pass the immigration enforcement bill through a complicated budget process that requires a long series of amendment votes. Democrats are considering multiple amendments, potentially to block that new fund outright or to ban any payments to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Presenting a united front, Democrats from both the House and Senate rallied on the Capitol steps Thursday to show their opposition. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the amendment process “will give Republicans countless chances to do the right thing.”
He added that if they declined to make changes, it would show voters that “Ballroom Republicans are not working for you, they are busy fighting for Trump.”
Those amendments, along with others, could pass as a growing number of Republicans have voiced reservations about the fund. So Republicans are now discussing their own last-minute additions to head that off, potentially placing some parameters on the settlement and who could receive compensation, according to two people with knowledge of the private discussions who requested anonymity to discuss them.
It was unclear how any Senate changes would be received in the House. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that the House will pass the bill “whatever form it takes.”
Tensions rise between Senate and White House
As Republicans challenged the settlement and parts of his agenda, Trump unloaded on the Senate in a social media post on Wednesday.
He urged Republicans to fire the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who said over the weekend that parts of the $1 billion security proposal cannot remain in the ICE and Border Patrol bill. Trump also renewed his long-standing calls for the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, a Republican bill that would require all voters to prove U.S. citizenship, and to end the Senate filibuster.
Republicans need to “get smart and tough,” Trump said, or “you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!”
While they have been loyal to Trump on most issues, Senate Republicans have resisted his repeated calls — even in his first term — to kill the filibuster, which triggers a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
Hanging over the growing GOP rift is Trump’s surprise endorsement of Paxton. That intervention has Republican senators privately fuming that it could cost them their majority in November as they view the incumbent, Cornyn, as the better candidate in the November general election.
Secret Service request falters
Under the Secret Service’s request, about $220 million would fund security improvements related to the ballroom. The rest would go for a new screening center for visitors, training and other security measures.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to the bill was a “bad idea.” The bill should not have included the other security improvements, he said, “because it’s just giving everybody the ‘billion-dollar ballroom.’”
Several other Republicans in the House and Senate have questioned the request, and senators left a briefing with the director of the Secret Service last week saying they needed a lot more information.
People “can’t afford groceries and gasoline and healthcare, and we’re going to do a billion dollars for a ballroom?” asked Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost reelection in his GOP primary on Saturday after Trump endorsed one of his opponents.
Left in the bill is the money for ICE and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked for months in protest of the administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
Democrats demanded changes for the agencies, but negotiations with the White House yielded little progress. So Republicans are using the complicated budget maneuver called reconciliation — the same process that allowed them to pass Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill last year — to fund the agencies through the end of Trump’s term with a simple majority and no Democratic votes.
Still, passage requires sign-off from the parliamentarian and unity from Republicans.
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Associated Press writers Collin Binkley, Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that the settlement fund is $1.8 billion, not $1.8 trillion
Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking And Stephen Groves, The Associated Press
