Trump admin backs off controversial $2B fund, clearing path for stalled GOP immigration bill
The DOJ paused the Trump administration's proposed anti-weaponization fund Monday, giving Senate Republicans space to push immigration enforcement funding.

Russia is now bombing NATO countries, and it appears that President Donald Trump is asleep at the wheel. Writing on Monday, MS NOW producer Steve Benen sounded the alarm about an incoming disaster visible on the horizon. A Wall Street Journal report last week quoted several world leaders in Europe as saying that they fear Russian President Vladimir Putin is about to go beyond Ukraine and look at the countries he can go to war with next in an effort to grow the former Soviet Union back to its original borders. "Russian drones have repeatedly crashed without causing casualties along the Danube River border between Romania and Ukraine since 2023. But the drone crash on Friday, on the roof of a residential compound in the port city, Galati, sharply escalated tensions between NATO and Moscow," The New York Times reported.On Friday, a Russian drone hit an apartment building. The incident was condemned by world leaders, and even Trump's ally and NATO ambassador, Matthew Whitaker, reaffirmed the U.S.'s commitment to NATO, promising that the U.S. was ready to defend Europe. Trump, by contrast, has remained silent. It's unusual, Benen said, because he loves to beat his chest and project strength. Hitting a building in Romania isn't merely a one-off. Benen explained that it is a pattern with Russia. Last fall, Russian drones entered Polish airspace. NATO pilots shot them down. Then, Russian pilots violated Estonian airspace.Benen added that none of these "tests" happened under non-Trump administrations. It makes Trump's "weakness toward Vladimir Putin ... especially humiliating," he wrote. The GOP has similarly been quiet. "In recent weeks, the Republican president has repeatedly criticized NATO as a 'paper tiger' because its members chose not to participate in his misguided war with Iran, but he has offered no comparable criticisms of Russia for incidents inside NATO member nations," Benen closed.
The DOJ paused the Trump administration's proposed anti-weaponization fund Monday, giving Senate Republicans space to push immigration enforcement funding.
Trump's $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" that would have benefited political allies is being scrapped, according to the Department of Justice.
Senate Democrats plan to kill Trump's $2 billion anti-weaponization fund as GOP dissent grows and a reconciliation vote-a-rama approaches this week.
BREAKING UPDATE: The Justice Department released a statement on Monday afternoon on a district court judge's ruling on the weaponization fund. The post BREAKING UPDATE: Trump DOJ Drops $1.77 Billion Weaponization Fund appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
President Donald Trump's administration pulled the plug on his $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" after a federal judge temporarily blocked it over the weekend — but that doesn't mean the rising confrontation it's caused between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill is over, Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman told MS NOW's Katy Tur on Monday."Maybe you have some information about what Speaker Mike Johnson might have said to the president when he was at the White House a little bit earlier today," Tur asked Sherman, referring to the recent meeting on the status of the reconciliation bill, which Republicans have debated updating with language limiting the fund.Sherman acknowledged he didn't know exactly what was discussed there about the fund, but that his sources tell him "the administration is going to announce through DOJ that they are going to comply with the court order ... but the administration plans to say they plan to take no further action."Despite that, he argued, this "is not going to be an immediate salve for Capitol Hill" because Trump could simply decide at a later date to restart it up again when the court order expires. "They're going to want to put language in ... the reconciliation legislation, which funds ICE and CBP, to make sure that the administration can't, at some point, return and do this again."In other words, he said, Republicans will take a "trust, but verify" attitude and "put teeth into legislation to make sure that the administration doesn't, in a couple of months, say, actually, we've changed our minds. We're going to go back and set up this $1.8 billion fund."Ultimately, though, he said, this is probably good news for Republicans because the administration's surrender means they can move forward with the broader reconciliation bill."This was the only path, Katy, to get this done," he said. "The administration would have been frozen up here for weeks, if not months ... if this weaponization fund was put in place, they would have had to deal with this on every single bill that the House and Senate were looking to pass." As a result, Trump had "no other option" but to throw in the towel on the slush fund. - YouTube youtu.be
According to satellite imagery and video analysis, Iran has attacked at least 20 American military facilities across the Middle East, with some experts estimating as many as 28 bases targeted. The report by BBC Verify significantly exceeds public U.S. acknowledgment of the attacks. Strikes have hit key installations across eight countries: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Notable losses include three THAAD anti-missile batteries, each costing approximately $1 billion, and forming a complex regional defense network that cannot be quickly replaced. At Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia alone, 42 aircraft have been destroyed or damaged since February, including F-15s, F-35s, Reaper drones, and an A-10 attack plane worth up to $700 million. Iran's tactics evolved from mass missile barrages to precise strikes targeting high-value assets. The Pentagon declined to dispute the BBC's findings, while the U.S. requested satellite imagery restrictions on the region.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
President Donald Trump is committed to rewriting reality when it comes to a certain "bald-faced lie," one political scholar wrote for The Hill, and it is one that is putting him on a collision course with his own party.John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus of political science at the Catholic University of America, and on Monday, he published a piece for The Hill arguing that Trump has lost "all sense of reality" when it comes to the Jan. 6 Capitol Riots — and it is proving to be a massive headache for Republicans staring down tight races in the coming midterms."For years, President Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to recast the events of that day. Trump called it a “day of love,'" White wrote. "Recently, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told reporters it had been a 'self-made riot by people who hate Trump.' Today, the price of admission into Trump’s Republican Party is to accept the bald-faced lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and the violence of Jan. 6 either did not happen or was staged."He added later: "But Trump’s version of history is running afoul of Republicans who fear voter retribution is coming this November. After Trump sued his own government for leaking information about his tax returns, the Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion settlement. The money, Trump said, is to be paid to people who were 'really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt with corrupt people running it,' among whom he likely intends to include Jan. 6 rioters."This plan, White noted, was a bridge too far even for Republicans, many of whom "demurred" at the idea. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that he was "not a big fan," of the fund, while Rep. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called it a "galactic blunder." This face-off between Trump and the GOP comes as economic matters are set to be the defining issue of the midterms, and Republicans sweat about the president's increasing obsession with frivolous and costly ideas at the expense of actual policy wins."Trump’s intentional forgetfulness about the violence of Jan. 6 and his role in it is akin to white Southerners’ rewriting of history after the Civil War," White continued. "Following the Confederacy’s defeat, the South recast the Civil War as a noble cause in defense of states’ rights. By the early 20th century, nearly 700 Confederate statues were erected throughout the South and the history books were whitewashed to make the conflict primarily about states’ rights, not slavery."He added later: "Trump has adopted an even more aggressive stance when it comes to rewriting the history of Jan. 6. This month, the Justice Department began scrubbing its website of any references to the insurrection. The department said it is, 'proud to reverse' its 'weaponization under the Biden administration,' and 'will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes,' including removing 'partisan propaganda' from the Justice Department’s website."