President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he would be “disappointed” if Congress failed to pass nearly $1.8 billion in funding for an “anti-weaponization fund” meant to reward persons targeted for prosecution by the Justice Department under Joe Biden.
The president spoke to NBC’s Kristen Welker for an interview on Meet the Press, and once again urged lawmakers to include funding for what some members of his own party have called a “slush fund” in the budget reconciliation legislation currently being debated on the Hill.
“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve. People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it. People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them,” said the president.
Members of Congress are currently debating legislation that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the next three years. But the president’s demand for money that many lawmakers worry would be used to directly benefit his political allies nearly derailed that conversation as Democrats and even some Republicans derided the idea as politically toxic and a corrupt use of taxpayer funds.
Lawmakers confronted acting Attorney General Todd Blanche over the issue at a contentious meeting before the Memorial Day holiday last month, and eventually passed the reconciliation package through the Senate without funding for the payouts.
The president pointed to the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago as an example of the Biden administration’s overreach. He was investigated after leaving the White House in 2021 for allegedly concealing or improperly withholding White House documents that were meant to be turned over to the National Archives after he left office, one of two federal criminal investigation Trump faced during the four years of Joe Biden’s presidency.
“They went after me more than anybody else,” said Trump. “They raided Mar-a-Lago and all the other things. But people have been badly hurt. They’ve committed suicide. They’ve lost their jobs.”
“I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved. If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed,” he added.
But the idea has been met with fierce resistance on Congress, and Republican leadership in the Senate spent the evening of Thursday into Friday last week defeating attempts to add language to the reconciliation package restricting the White House from implementing the fund at all, led by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Tillis’s efforts failed, but a House Republican lawmaker, Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) has threatened to force a vote on a similar measure as the bill moves to the House of Representatives.
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell derided the idea as “utterly stupid” in a statement after members met with Blanche last month.
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick,” the former GOP leader said.
McConnell’s onetime counterpart Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, reveled in the issue’s ability to divide the Republican caucus as lawmakers debated the reconciliation package.
“Republicans are in complete disarray, they’re at each other’s throats and the American are suffering for it,” he said last month. “Republicans have tied themselves up in knots and torn each other to shreds over Trump’s brazenly corrupt slush fund for his billionaire cronies and January 6 insurrectionists.”
