Senate Republicans defeat amendment to ban Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund
Earlier, Senate Republicans voted to kill Chuck Schumer’s motion to ban the DOJ from creating an “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate the president’s allies – though other efforts are expected later today that could get their support.
The initial Democratic effort was defeated by 49-50 votes, with three Republicans facing tough re-election races in November – Susan Collins, Jon Husted and Dan Sullivan – joining Democrats to vote in favor.
Acting attorney general Todd Blanche told lawmakers under oath earlier this week that the department was “not moving forward with the fund”, but he refused to put it in writing. Donald Trump also admitted yesterday that he didn’t know if the fund was dead or just on hold, and called it “a beautiful thing”.
Senate business was at a standstill for hours this morning as Republican senators deliberated over possible amendments to put into the bill that would kill the fund for good. Bill Cassidy, Husted and Sullivan held out for hours in an effort to “optimize chances for success”, as Cassidy later told reporters.
But ultimately, he and even retiring Thom Tillis voted no, with Tillis telling reporters that he and other Republicans were working on a range of ideas that would “get the fund out” without imperiling the underlying immigration bill.
Key events
Oliver Milman
Per my last post, Trump is using a wartime presidential authority to hand $700m to coal-fired power plants in the US, the latest move by the president to bolster what he calls “beautiful clean coal” despite it being the dirtiest of fossil fuels.
The president is using the Defense Production Act, a cold war-era statute used to accelerate American industrial output in times of national need, to provide grants to more than a dozen existing coal plants across the US, including facilities capable of exporting coal.
The president has long been a champion of reviving the US’s ailing coal industry, with today’s White House event featuring supportive governors and lawmakers from coal-rich states such as Wyoming and West Virginia.
In the past year, the Trump administration has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to the coal industry, signed orders forcing ratepayers to pay extra for ageing plants to stay open and dismantled environmental rules that limit toxins from coal leaching into Americans’ shared air and water.
Regardless of Trump’s characterization of coal as “clean, beautiful”, the reality is that coal is not clean. It is the most carbon-dense fossil fuel and therefore a leading cause of the climate crisis when burned. Coal also gives off tiny toxic particles that sicken miners and trigger widespread respiratory and heart health problems across the US – research has estimated that as many as 460,000 deaths in the US from 1999 to 2020 were attributable to air pollution from coal plants alone.
Environmental groups strongly criticized the administration’s latest aid for coal. “It is disgusting and reprehensible that the president of the United States is giving away our taxpayer dollars to deadly and expensive coal plants that will make Americans sicker and drive up electricity prices even more,” said Patrick Drupp, climate policy director of the Sierra Club.
“This handout betrays everything Donald Trump promised and only serves his big coal buddies who stroke his ego and hand him shiny trophies.”
Read Oliver’s full report here:
Trump gives $700m boost to coal projects
Donald Trump has just announced a $700m investment into what he described as “beautiful, clean coal” projects, as his administration continues to grapple with steep energy costs amid his war on Iran.
The funds will protect 14 coal plants and 42 coal mines, build two new coal plants and a new export terminal, Trump said in the Oval Office. “It’s real power,” he said, adding – falsely – that “there’s no alternative”. (Cue his usual attacks on windmills).
Oliver Laughland
in New Orleans
The ranking member on the US Senate’s influential finance committee has demanded transparency over a proposed “first-of-its-kind” ICE family and child detention center in Alexandria, Louisiana, citing reporting by the Guardian that first revealed the Trump administration’s plans in March.
Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has written to the project’s contractors and to the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] expressing concerns over conflicts of interest, environmental contamination, and “the absence of a public process” in the center’s planning.
“A federal facility designed to hold children and families in federal custody cannot be stood up in secrecy,” the letter states.
The move comes as documents obtained by the Guardian, including layout designs, draft contracts and email communications, provide further details of the proposed facility’s operations, as the Department of Homeland Security continues to refuse to comment on the project.
A spokesperson for England Airpark, the local authority responsible for leasing the land, confirmed that no contract had yet been signed.
Here’s Oliver’s report:
Further to the last post, ahead of the vote this morning, Republican senator Bill Cassidy and Democrat Cory Booker filed an amicus brief calling the “anti-weaponization” fund an “immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress”.
Urging a federal judge to block the fund in court, the lawmakers laid out their argument that the fund violates the constitution and is “designed to compensate the insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on January 6th”.
“The existence of the fund strikes at the core of congressional authority and our Ccnstitutional order,” they wrote.
Though Cassidy ultimately voted no on Chuck Schumer’s motion (see my last post), he quickly filed his own amendment to prohibit payments from the fund.
Senate Republicans defeat amendment to ban Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund
Earlier, Senate Republicans voted to kill Chuck Schumer’s motion to ban the DOJ from creating an “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate the president’s allies – though other efforts are expected later today that could get their support.
The initial Democratic effort was defeated by 49-50 votes, with three Republicans facing tough re-election races in November – Susan Collins, Jon Husted and Dan Sullivan – joining Democrats to vote in favor.
Acting attorney general Todd Blanche told lawmakers under oath earlier this week that the department was “not moving forward with the fund”, but he refused to put it in writing. Donald Trump also admitted yesterday that he didn’t know if the fund was dead or just on hold, and called it “a beautiful thing”.
Senate business was at a standstill for hours this morning as Republican senators deliberated over possible amendments to put into the bill that would kill the fund for good. Bill Cassidy, Husted and Sullivan held out for hours in an effort to “optimize chances for success”, as Cassidy later told reporters.
But ultimately, he and even retiring Thom Tillis voted no, with Tillis telling reporters that he and other Republicans were working on a range of ideas that would “get the fund out” without imperiling the underlying immigration bill.
Analysis: Trump’s Iran war messaging is not winning over Americans – or their representatives
Joseph Gedeon
Donald Trump has two things to say about his war with Iran. The first is that it’s already over. And second, a symbolic congressional vote to end it – carried by four members of his own party – is a stab in the back that could derail the peace talks he’s conducting for the war that’s already over.
By a 215-208 margin yesterday, the House voted to direct the president to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran, the first time either chamber has passed such a measure in the little over three months since “Operation Epic Fury” began on 28 February. By this morning, Trump was on Truth Social calling the vote “unpatriotic” and blaming it on “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.
The four Republicans who crossed the aisle, each with different ideologies, don’t exactly fit the bill for such a diagnosis.
Thomas Massie is a libertarian-leaning constitutionalist who has opposed the war from day one, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, and has, in Trump’s estimation, nothing left to lose. Warren Davidson is a West Point graduate, former army ranger, and ex-Freedom Caucus member who voted against the war alongside Massie in March, but flipped back until recently.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent representing Philadelphia’s suburbs, is well known as a moderate who framed his vote in the plainest possible terms. “You either follow the law, or you change the law,” he said. “You can’t violate the law. That’s not an option.”
Tom Barrett voted in March against a war powers resolution, saying Trump had “earned the opportunity to resolve this conflict quickly”. By May, however, he had changed his mind, citing the economic pain hitting his constituents. All four lawmakers coalesced for last night’s vote.
But none of this has stopped the administration from declaring, with some confidence, that the war is already over. The Trump administration insists the US is now only conducting “completely defensive” strikes.
And yet gas prices are averaging close to $4.24 per gallon nationwide, per AAA, and nearly $6 in California. The strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, remains effectively closed, three months after the first strikes on Iran.
Trump’s own Truth Social post – in which he condemned yesterday’s vote as unpatriotic – describes active “final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran”. The war that has concluded is, apparently, still being negotiated to a conclusion.
The absurdity of calling anyone out for noticing the contradiction as disloyal does not appear to be winning over most Americans. A May Economist/YouGov survey found 59% disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, while only 31% approved. About two-thirds of Americans told Reuters/Ipsos that rising gas prices had hurt their household finances, and Moody’s Analytics estimates the conflict has cost US households roughly $100bn in aggregate through higher energy costs.
Yesterday’s House vote is, as the White House correctly notes, largely symbolic. But symbols have a way of accumulating. In the Senate, the math is moving. The war remains unpopular. The strait of Hormuz is still closed.
Trump is insisting the conflict is over and, in the same breath, that talking about it is unpatriotic. For a growing number of Americans, and their representatives on Capitol Hill, this is not a winning message.
Israel and Lebanon have agreed to implement a ceasefire to end hostilities as the US attempts to overcome one of the largest barriers to reaching a broader deal to end the war with Iran.
But the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is dependent on a complete halt of fire from Hezbollah, and the evacuation of all its fighters in southern Lebanon.
Uwa Ede-Osifo
The California governor’s race remained unsettled Thursday, as state election officials continued to sift through uncounted primary ballots – a process that could take days or even weeks as voters eagerly await the results.
Polls indicated that British-born conservative pundit Steve Hilton was narrowly leading the race, followed by former US health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra. Billionaire Tom Steyer trailed behind the pair. Under California’s primary system, the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election.
The question of which two will face off in November may be unanswered for weeks, according to election officials. Per state law, California counties must finish counting ballots by 15 June, but certain ballots are exempt from that deadline. For example, mail-in ballots postmarked by election day and received by 9 June are valid and can be processed beyond the deadline.
An estimate of the number of remaining unprocessed ballots is expected on Thursday. Faced with a crowded slate of gubernatorial contenders, many Democratic voters held on to their mail-in ballots until election day as they weighed which candidate had the best chance of reaching one of the top two slots.
Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman
Democratic-led states are eroding their climate policies, as red states are scaling up their clean energy deployment.
California on Friday scaled back its cap-and-invest program, offering more than $3bn in free pollution allowances to polluting companies. Earlier the same week, New York weakened its groundbreaking climate law, delaying a plan to regulate carbon from 2024 until 2028 and reducing emissions-slashing targets. Rhode Island’s governor, meanwhile, is attempting to roll back aggressive clean-energy programs.
The moves come as Donald Trump’s administration withdraws clean energy incentives and energy savings programs, and as energy prices spike across the country amid trade disruptions stemming from the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Proponents have said the changes are necessary to suppress electricity costs, but climate advocates say that view is short-sighted and misguided.
“Using affordability as a cudgel to weaken climate policy is a major error that will not solve either crisis, ultimately amplifying both,” said Johanna Bozuwa, executive director of the Climate and Community Institute, a left-leaning thinktank.
For the full story, click here:
The Senate is voting on a motion to ban the creation of the DOJ’s so-called “anti-weaponization” fund and also send the underlying immigration enforcement bill back to committee.
Despite a number of Republicans being fiercely opposed to the fund, they might not vote yes because doing so could tank the immigration bill.
Introducing the motion on the Senate floor, minority leader Chuck Schumer said:
America has never seen a more clear-cut case of corruption than Donald Trump’s slush fund.
“Republicans are trusting the word of Todd Blanche, who built a career on lying, that the administration will just drop this slush fund,” he added. Blanche assured lawmakers earlier this week that the fund had been abandoned, though he declined to put it in writing.
Trump also said yesterday he’d have to ask his lawyers whether it was dead or just on hold. “I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know,” he said in the Oval Office.
Schumer’s amendment needs just 50 votes to pass.
Bessent dodges questions again on taxpayer audit immunity
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent is testifying at another congressional hearing this morning, this time before the House ways and means committee.
Once again he dodged questions about whether the IRS has recommended “any taxpayer be granted immunity from an audit for their taxes” during his tenure.
Bessent told Democratic representative Lloyd Doggett he was unable to answer due to the matter being “under litigation”.
Doggett replied that, “it isn’t a question of being ‘not able’ – it’s being ‘not want to’.” He repeated the question, and Bessent once again said he was “unable” to answer.
“You can answer it, you refuse to answer,” Doggett said. “Your appearance here today, and yesterday, defines deception, and that’s what you’re doing to the American people.”
He later added:
I think we can assume from your deception today that nothing’s being done, and this president is being treated in a way that no other president – no other American citizen – has been treated in an incredibly corrupt deal.
As we reported yesterday, Bessent refused to be drawn on questions about the status of the contentious provision that provides Donald Trump, his family and his businesses with immunity from IRS audits and repeatedly deferred to the justice department.