Senate Republicans on Thursday narrowly scuttled an attempt by Democrats to stop Donald Trump from creating a $1.8bn fund to pay his allies, even as signs emerged that dissent over the proposal was spreading inside the US president’s own party.
Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had proposed inserting language barring the payouts into Republican-backed legislation to fund Trump’s mass deportation campaign through the duration of his term.
After a vote that stretched for three hours as groups of senators were spotted huddling on the chamber’s floor, the amendment failed by a 49-50 vote. Three Republican senators, all of whom are seen as vulnerable in November’s midterm elections, broke with their party to join all Democrats in support.
Though Schumer’s amendment failed, the matter is likely to come up again before Congress. The president’s plan for an “anti-weaponization” fund that could issue financial settlements to people connected to the January 6 insurrection has riven Senate Republicans, and complicated their efforts to settle for good a standoff with Democrats over funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), agencies the president has tasked with implementing his hardline immigration policies.
Amid the bipartisan outcry, Todd Blanche, acting US attorney general, told lawmakers earlier this week that the administration would not move forward with the fund. But that did not satisfy Schumer, who insisted that Congress should pass a law blocking the money from ever being spent.
“Republicans are trusting the word of Todd Blanche, who built a career on lying, the administration will just drop the slush fund,” said Schumer. He noted that just the day prior, Trump had expressed his “love” for the fund, and said it was “so important”.
“Do any of us believe that Donald Trump, who has lied to us day in and day out, will be able to resist getting his sticky fingers in the slush fund when it would benefit himself and his family?” Schumer asked.
Susan Collins of Maine, the only Republican senator representing a state won by Kamala Harris in 2024, supported his amendment, along with Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Jon Husted of Ohio. All are top targets of Democrats in the midterms, and on Wednesday, Fox News released a poll showing Husted trailing his Democratic challenger, former senator Sherrod Brown, by eight percentage points.
Schumer proposed his amendment to a $70bn bill that will fund ICE and CBP through 2029, which Republicans are seeking to pass along party lines using the budget reconciliation process to circumvent the Democratic filibuster in the Senate. The standoff over funding for those agencies began in January, when Democrats refused to vote for their appropriations without reforms, sparking a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that stretched for 75 days.
The rules of the reconciliation process allow for lawmakers to propose amendments to the bill before its passage in the Senate. After Schumer’s amendment failed, Thom Tillis, a Republican senator, proposed adding language that would prevent payouts from the “anti-weaponization” fund, and instead make that money available to justice department efforts to combat fraud.
“This bill is unpopular. This administration has said they’re not moving forward with it. This is an opportunity for us to put it to bed and to also fund the fraud division, which I think is very important,” Tillis said.
Democrats rejected that amendment, with Oregon senator Jeff Merkley describing it as insufficient. “Taking one slush fund and eliminating it and creating a new slush fund still under the control of the attorney general is not the way to go,” he said. “The way to go is to get rid of these slush funds altogether.”
Tillis’s amendment failed, with only 11 other Republicans and three Democrats voting in favor.
