The week that broke Trump's control of the Senate
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From the WSJ's lips to God's ear.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and a team of White House aides arrived at a hastily organized meeting near the Senate chamber hoping to reassure Republicans about a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” promoted by President Trump.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Trump ally from Arkansas, wasn’t having it.
“Who thought this was a good idea? Who chose this timing?” Cotton asked bluntly inside the Senate’s ornate Mike Mansfield Room, pressing Blanche, White House legislative affairs director James Braid and others about the fund with a series of point-blank questions, according to people familiar with the tense exchange.
Cotton was far from alone—more than a dozen Republican senators grilled Blanche about the settlement in the two-hour meeting, the people said, questioning its merit and warning that it could derail approval of a $70 billion multiyear package funding immigration enforcement.
“One of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), said Friday on his podcast. “Fiery does not begin to cut it,” Cruz said, adding that some senators were screaming at Blanche.
For more than a year, Republican senators had largely been deferential to Trump’s wishes—from backing contentious cabinet nominees to giving the president free rein on tariffs and the Iran war.
This week, they revolted en masse, fed up with Trump’s insistence on settling personal scores and pursuing pet projects at the expense of their legislative agenda. The tipping point came when Trump endorsed a rival to Texas Sen. John Cornyn on Tuesday, a move that stunned many of Cornyn’s colleagues. They saw it as a reckless way to treat a senior Republican incumbent whose seat the party can’t afford to lose in November.
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