'Push hard': Trump suddenly about-faces on controversial $1.8 billion fund
Just hours after President Donald Trump finally admitted his $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" was "dead," he promised he would "push hard" to get it passed.
Trump took to Truth Social early Saturday morning to defend the controversial fund and slam two Republicans — Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis — who have vowed to block acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation until they receive written proof it's dead.
"If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche," Trump wrote, "then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill."
"It will immediately be back on the table," Trump said, "and I will get it done."
Trump's complaint — that Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election had been "badly treated — also included a jab at his Democratic predecessors: "Crooked Joe Biden (and Obuma!)"
Blanche, the criminal prosecutor who in 2024 failed to protect Trump from a criminal conviction in New York City, was described as "a voice of reason" Trump vowed to keep on in acting role.
This post arrived just hours after Trump told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce the fund was "dead."
"Well, it is dead, but you know I wish it weren't, to be honest with you," Trump said. "I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused."
The Judiciary Committee postponed voting Blanche's nomination this week amid resistance from Cornyn and Tillis, both of whom will leave the Senate in January.
Cornyn (R-TX) has stated publicly he believes Trump will face strong resistance in the Senate.
"POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis," Cornyn wrote on X.
Tillis (R-NC) on Friday slammed Trump's commitment to the Anti Weaponization Fund.
"The criminals who assaulted police officers and defiled our nation’s Capitol are not 'great American patriots' who are 'victims of government abuse,'" Tillis wrote on X.
"Anyone who attacked law enforcement should still be in prison, not getting a check from the federal government."
Update: About 30 minutes after Trump posted to Truth Social, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance unearthed an appeal he filed in the Trump v. IRS case on July 31.
"If the $1.776b slush fund and Trump tax immunity deal are really dead," she wrote on X, "then why bother to appeal, the judges decision in Trump v IRS that ruled they were dead?"
