Republicans are on the verge of finally passing their massive $70 billion immigration enforcement bill — but first they’ll need to stick together through an obstacle course of tricky votes meant to squeeze their most vulnerable incumbents.
The Senate is expected to kick off an hourslong marathon vote series, known as vote-a-rama, around 10 a.m. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters the House could vote on the package as early as Friday morning.
GOP leaders are feeling fairly confident they’ll ultimately be able to pass the bill, but they are facing efforts by some in their own party to use the vote series to formally nix or place guardrails on Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
Retiring Sens. Thom Tillis and Bill Cassidy have both filed amendments on the fund, which set off a firestorm last month when Trump officials said those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 could apply to receive payouts.
“We have a third of our members up for reelection this year … I’m trying to fend off some headwinds our members will have,” Tillis said. “There’s no way to explain the fund [to voters], so the only way to explain it is to explain that you got rid of it. It’s that simple.”
Several more of their GOP colleagues told us they may support trying to get language related to the fund into the bill, which GOP leaders believe could threaten the legislation’s prospects.
Tillis’ proposal would reallocate the $1.8 billion that would have gone toward the fund to fraud prevention instead.
Meanwhile, Cassidy has filed amendments to prohibit payments from the pot of money and to create a “Capitol defenders fund” for law enforcement officers involved in Jan. 6. Another Cassidy measure would prevent prohibitions of tax audits of the president, which targets a Justice Department agreement last month ending any IRS scrutiny of Trump.
“You want to make sure it’s really dead, and I think we can make it really dead,” Cassidy said of the fund.
Democrats have several amendments of their own related to the funding, including a proposal from Sen. Chris Coons to prevent taxpayer money from being used to make payments through the fund and one from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto to require Trump to pay taxes on the settlement.
Democrats also have proposals to redirect the immigration enforcement funding toward health care, child care and other cost-of-living concerns as they try to hammer home an affordability message heading into midterms.
And wait, there’s more.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren filed an amendment seeking to force the government to release more information on Jeffrey Epstein and a Sen. Mark Warner measure would prevent the director of national intelligence from getting a salary “if the individual does not have extensive national security expertise” — a knock at Bill Pulte, who Trump named to be the acting DNI this week.
What else we’re watching:
— BLANCHE’S POSSIBLE NOMINATION SPLITS SENATE GOP: Trump is imminently expected to nominate Todd Blanche as attorney general, the position he’s held on an acting basis since April. Tillis, as a member of Senate Judiciary, could single-handedly block the panel from approving his nomination, and this week was already signaling hesitation given the role Blanche played in defending Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
— REPUBLICANS COMPILE RECONCILIATION 3.0: House GOP leaders are looking to have a blueprint for their next party-line reconciliation bill ready within the next few weeks as some Republicans are antsy about making progress. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz was on Capitol Hill Wednesday discussing with senior House Republicans ways to crack down on Medicaid and hospice “fraud,” according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
Dasha Burns, Myah Ward, Aaron Pellish and Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
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