Trump’s DOJ could still pay Jan. 6 rioters even without ‘anti-weaponization fund’
The Senate passed a $69.5 billion bill giving over three years of funding to two immigration enforcement agencies, taking a final step toward resolving a months-long dispute.
Scott Pelley and the ICE detention rioters are raging because things aren't going their way. It's how they plan to win the midterms.
Senate Republicans advanced ICE and Border Patrol funding through the end of President Trump's second term, after beating back multiple amendments targeting his priorities during an 18-hour "vote-a-rama."Why it matters: The party-line vote had been deeply in doubt over the past weeks, as senators revolted against the "anti-weaponization fund" and spending requests for the president's White House renovations. The final vote was 52-47, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voting "no" and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) not voting. The "vote-a-rama" allowed senators to offer unlimited amendments, forcing GOP leadership to repeatedly defeat amendments that targeted the two Trump provisions.Zoom in: In the vote's opening act — a series of Democratic amendments designed to force uncomfortable votes for Republicans — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) relied on Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to help defeat a Democratic proposal targeting the "anti-weaponization fund."Cassidy's vote allowed a pair of politically vulnerable Republicans — Sens. Jon Husted (Ohio) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska) — to side with Democrats without jeopardizing the amendment's defeat.For both senators, it marked one of their first meaningful breaks with a president whose political standing appears to be sliding.The vote failed, 49-50. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is also vulnerable but was expected to vote with Democrats, joined Husted and Sullivan in voting for the amendment.Between the lines: On Trump's ballroom, the universe of Republicans willing to buck their party expanded, with seven GOP senators voting with Democrats to bar any funds for it. But the threshold for that vote was at 60, leading it to fail.Collins, Husted and Sullivan again voted with the Democrats.But so did Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Murkowski and Cassidy. Moran is up for reelection in 2028.Zoom out: The vote-a-rama comes as Senate Republicans grapple with deteriorating polling and a series of Trump decisions that have led some GOP senators to question his political judgment.Many Republicans are privately skeptical of Trump's choice of FHFA Director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.Trump sought to ease concerns by saying Thursday that Pulte would not be his permanent nominee — a move aimed in part at preventing the nomination from complicating the reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA.But enough Republicans joined Democrats in voting to block a procedural vote on FISA renewal that the vote failed shortly after reconciliation advanced early Friday morning.
WASHINGTON — The Senate passed legislation early Friday to fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, after intense bipartisan backlash over a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund threatened to derail the bill
Six Republican senators voted early Friday morning with Democrats for an amendment sponsored by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to block the Trump administration from reviving a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to pay MAGA allies who feel they were prosecuted by the Biden-era Justice Department. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Jon…
The Senate passed legislation to fund President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agencies early Friday morning, after weeks of delays and fierce backlash to an unrelated $1.776 billion settlement fund that threatened to derail the bill.
A former top MAGA influencer still blasts the MAGA cult and the operators that drive the movement from the top.“The structure and the architecture of MAGA is very indistinguishable from a cult,” explained Ashley St. Clair, Elon Musk's ex-lover, former MAGA influencer and the mother of one of his children, in a podcast appearance with The Left Hook’s Wajahat Ali. Describing how she dropped out of college to be a full-time MAGA influencer while dating an older man who served MAGA under the name DC Drano, she described how “he was molding me. He was like, ‘Here's what you put on the sign outside of the ICE detention center,’ directing my content. ‘Here's how you monetize Instagram, here's how you do all this.’ So I was very much molded by that.”Described by Ali as a former "dutiful MAGA bot" who once repeated "all the cliché talking points," St. Clair now says leaving the cult is one of the hardest things to do."[O]nce ... you're with this very controversial crowd online, you cannot just change your political views. Changing your political views means you're blowing up your whole life — your social community, the way you provide for your family, the roof over your head. It's not just like, ‘Oh, now I believe in less fiscal conservatism.’ It is really going against people who do not take kindly to people leaving their gang.”St. Clair continued, “You're on the receiving end of a lot of smear campaigns, attacks, and harassment — things that frankly put your family in danger — to speak out and go against the grain. And not that it's an excuse — I don't want anyone to think that the things I'm saying right now are an excuse for the rhetoric I was involved in — but rather I'm trying to understand the pathology of how people get stuck in this, and feel like they don't have a way out.”Later in the conversation, Ali returned to the subject of why so many people in the Trump movement stand by him. He found a potential motive in addition to it being a political cult.“When I was a contributor at CNN — a contributor, rather, I should say — in the green room, this was right before COVID, nearly every single Trump supporter that I went on and debated with on a panel, pretty much across the board — I would say except two at the time, actually: Paris Denard and Geoffrey Lord — everyone in the green room said, ‘I can't stand Trump, he's so annoying, the MAGA movement is so stupid, look at these idiots.’”Once the cameras started rolling, however, Ali said all he heard from them was “MAGA talking point, MAGA talking point, MAGA talking point.” He claimed he responded by telling them “‘You know, no one's putting a gun to your head. You could literally just join me and call them out.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, but this is where my bread is buttered. This is how you stay relevant.’”St. Clair is not the only ex-Trumper to describe the MAGA movement as a cult. In February, former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) made the same point in a Substack post while describing Trump’s militant behavior toward Greenland, Venezuela and Iran.“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh said. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, they still support him.Walsh continued, “You’ve got no argument against people calling you a cult. And if he takes us to war against Iran, and you clap and applaud and throw him flowers, Trump supporters, I will be at the front of the parade calling you a cult.”
The Senate passed the $69.5 billion reconciliation package to fund immigration enforcement Friday after an anti-weaponization fund and White House ballroom funding threatened its passage. The Senate passed […]