Trump 'slush fund' a flashpoint as Senate heads home without funding DHS
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on April 22, 2026 in Washington, DC. Congress will leave
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on April 22, 2026 in Washington, DC. Congress will leave Washington this week without approving a package that would fund immigration enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, as tensions simmered over a recently announced $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that could provide payouts to allies of President Donald Trump. The Senate was originally planning to start considering the package Thursday, potentially sending it to the House to take up before both chambers are slated to take a one-week recess. But plans were paused after a meeting at the Capitol with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was dispatched on Thursday to brief Republican senators on the fund.
Some were not satisfied. "I think we need to get some clarity about how this is going to work," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters, according to MS NOW. "Hopefully when we get back a week from Monday we can get right on it and get rolling," he said of the broader funding effort, which was intended to make up money for immigration enforcement that wasn't included in an earlier Department of Homeland Security funding bill. "It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean straightforward. And it got a little bit more complicated this week." The punt means Congress will miss the arbitrary June 1 deadline Trump had set for final passage of the package.
The House canceled votes on Friday, and a trip Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had planned to take to the White House on Thursday to talk about the funding effort was called off. Democrats said the episode was a sign of Republican dysfunction. "This afternoon Republicans, so divided, so dysfunctional, so disorganized, are fleeing Washington," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a press conference. "Republicans are in complete disarray, they're at each other throats and the American people are suffering for it." The move forestalls what would have been a marathon series of votes. Schumer said Democrats had planned to use a Senate procedure — known as a vote-a-rama — to introduce amendments and force Republicans to weigh in on politically fraught topics, like Trump's proposed White House ballroom and the anti-weaponization fund, which could be used to pay out people purportedly targeted by the Biden administration, potentially including Jan.
6 Capitol riot defendants.
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