A Republican revolt over the Trump administration’s proposed anti-weaponization compensation fund abruptly derailed the GOP’s agenda on Thursday, forcing congressional leaders to delay votes on a reconciliation package for immigration enforcement as lawmakers rebelled against the president’s $1.776 billion proposal — which one GOP senator derided as a “payout pot for punks.”
The Senate was on track to begin voting Thursday on the GOP’s $72 billion package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, with hopes of passing the reconciliation bill late Thursday or early Friday morning and sending it to the House before a Memorial Day recess.
That plan suddenly fell through, however, as several Senate Republicans spoke out Thursday about the anti-weaponization fund and appeared ready to support Democratic-led amendments to block the proposal.
As opposition piled up, Senate GOP leaders pulled the vote, sending members home early for the week-long recess.
“We will pick up where we left off,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Thursday afternoon. Asked whether the anti-weaponization fund had influenced the decision to delay the vote, Thune suggested it played, at least, a part.
“It’s a big issue,” he said.
Thune added that the administration didn’t talk to him before rolling out the fund — “it would’ve been nice if they consulted,” he said — noting that the administration “probably would have gotten plenty of advice from lots of folks about it.”
“It’s water under the bridge now, and you know, you play the hand you’re dealt, and we’ll sort it out from here,” Thune said. “But, you know, obviously it became a more complicated and bumpy path than we had hoped for.”
The decision to punt votes on the immigration enforcement funding package came after a two-hour meeting with Senate Republicans and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. During that meeting — which sources described to Semafor as a “shitshow” — a number of GOP lawmakers spoke out against the fund, a source familiar with the meeting who was not authorized to speak about it told MS NOW.
In an attempt to salvage the fund, the Department of Justice gave GOP senators a memo outlining the project. The one-page document, obtained by MS NOW, said the fund “was greeted to hear and redress claims of Americans who suffered from lawfare and weaponization, defined as the use of government power to target them for ‘improper and unlawful’ reasons.”
The memo also claims the fund is open to “all Americans who were victims of lawfare and weaponization,” including senators whose phone data was obtained as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
But neither the memo nor the meeting seemed to answer all the questions Senate Republicans had about the fund.
Senate Appropriations Committee chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters she raised the issue of people who assaulted law enforcement potentially receiving compensation with Blanche. She suggested the acting attorney general guaranteed her that those individuals wouldn’t be given any money.
“I did raise that issue, and that seemed to be what he was saying, but we haven’t seen language,” she said.
But under the current language for the fund, lawmakers and the public wouldn’t even get to know who benefits from the money — and the president would have virtually unchecked authority to pay whomever he wants.
Collins said she wanted more clarity.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the possibility of targeted pay-outs to Trump’s political allies rubs voters the wrong way.
“The public pretty much spoke, and doesn’t really like the idea of having special funds for senators,” Paul said. “I think things need to be the same for everyone. Justice is when things occur that aren’t different for you because you’re an elected office. So I think there’s going to be more to come.”
Other GOP lawmakers have been even more forceful in their opposition to the fund. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called the proposal “a payout pot for punks.” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., posted online that “people are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the President and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability.”
“This is adding to our national debt. If there needs to be a settlement, the administration should bring it to Congress to decide,” he wrote on X.
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And on the House side, a number of Republicans have indicated they will actively try to block the fund in the reconciliation bill.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., who had already threatened to oppose the measure over East Wing ballroom funding, told MS NOW he wants language in the reconciliation bill to prohibit the $1.8 billion settlement fund.
“I don’t think it’s an appropriate use of money,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick, one of the three Republicans to represent a district Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, wrote a letter to Blanche on Wednesday expressing “urgent concern” about the money, calling it “a dangerous backsliding in the transparency of our institutions and our commitment to the American taxpayer.”
Fitzpatrick is now working with Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., on legislation that would prevent taxpayer dollars from being used for the fund.
With Republicans signaling major opposition to the fund — as well as a willingness to vote for Democratic amendments that could potentially block the money — GOP leaders had little choice but to delay the reconciliation bill, lest an amendment actually get adopted to the legislation and prompt Trump to veto the measure.
But even a delay is a blow to Republicans, who were racing to approve their $72 billion ICE and border patrol package before a Trump-imposed deadline on June 1.
The package was meant to be a narrow piece of legislation to fund the two agencies. But the outrage over the anti-weaponization fund and opposition to a provision to appropriate $1 billion for White House security — including $220 for the East Wing ballroom — have seriously complicated that plan.
Over the weekend, the Senate parliamentarian said the security funding violated the Byrd rule for not including instructions from other committees of jurisdiction, meaning it would require 60 votes for approval. While Republicans could have rewritten the language in the bill to give other committees a say over the funding, the underlying issue was that the ballroom funding also lacked GOP support.
Republicans decided to just leave that money out of the bill, though Democrats are still expected to offer amendments that would put Republicans on the record about the ballroom funding — which could bolster legal arguments that Trump lacks congressional authorization for the project, particularly if lawmakers outright prohibit the ballroom.
All the problems led Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to make the decision that Republicans would have to delay the bill.
“It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean, straightforward,” Thune said of the funding package. “And it got a little bit more complicated this week, as you all know.”
Democrats, meanwhile, are prepared for more sparring over the fund when the Senate returns. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Thursday that Democrats will “do everything we can to stop this slush fund,” including by pushing amendments to the reconciliation bill.
Others expressed relief that the meltdown may represent a break in the Republican Party’s deference to Trump.
“Is it possible, on May 21, 2026, the Republicans finally found an ethical bridge too far?” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from Arizona State University.
Lillie Boudreaux