(The Hill) Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters at the Capitol on Monday that his preference would be that the White House shut down the proposed $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund if Congress is to pass a budget reconciliation package anytime soon.
“I made my views very clear on the issue,” Thune said.
Asked if he would prefer the administration abandon the proposed fund to compensate people who were prosecuted by the Biden-era Justice Department, Thune nodded yes.
“I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” he added.
A $72 billion budget reconciliation package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through 2029 stalled in the Senate before the Memorial Day recess after GOP senators balked at voting on the package without a clear plan about how to handle the administration’s controversial anti-weaponization fund.
Thune said he spoke to White House officials last week and made his views “clear on the subject.”
“The best way to get the reconciliation bill moving and across the finish line is to confine it to the issues that we were addressing in the initial bill, which was [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE and funding it for the next three years, through the end of the Trump administration,” Thune said.
The Senate GOP leader said if the Trump administration shuts down the controversial anti-weaponization fund, the reconciliation bill has a good chance of passing the Senate and House.
“If the administration effectively shuts it down, makes that very, very clear, then that to me should answer the question,” he said, indicating that if the administration abandons the fund, Republicans would be able to fend off Democratic amendments related to the issue.
He also predicted that a budget reconciliation bill without funding for the White House ballroom and without potential amendments related to the anti-weaponization fund would have a good chance of reaching the president’s desk.
He said if the anti-weaponization fund is scuttled, the package could come to the Senate floor later this week.
“I think the House, if it’s confined to the issues that we addressed in the budget resolution, then I feel good about the House moving it,’ he said. “The best way … to get it done, is to get back to where we were originally and that was a targeted, clean, focused, narrow bill that addresses specifically those homeland security issues and through the end of the administration.”
Thune added that if the administration makes it clear that they won’t try to re-establish the compensation fund after the reconciliation package is signed into law, “that would be the ideal outcome.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) announced in a “Dear Colleague” letter Monday morning that Democrats would make an all-out push to force Republicans to vote on amendments to eliminate the fund.
“This week, Senate Democrats will launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door,” Schumer wrote.
“And no matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote. If Republicans return to reconciliation, we will be ready with amendments to shut the fund down. If they try to bury the issue, we will force them to the Senate floor. If they try to sneak behind appropriations, we will fight them there too,” he pledged.
