Senate Republicans on Thursday narrowly scuttled an attempt by Democrats to stop Donald Trump from creating a $1.8bn fund to pay his allies, even as signs emerged that dissent over the proposal was spreading inside the US president’s own party.
Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had proposed inserting language barring the payouts into Republican-backed legislation to fund Trump’s mass deportation campaign through the duration of his term.
After a vote that stretched for three hours as groups of senators were spotted huddling on the chamber’s floor, the amendment failed by a 49-50 vote. Three Republican senators, all of whom are seen as vulnerable in November’s midterm elections, broke with their party to join all Democrats in support.
Though Schumer’s amendment failed, the matter is likely to come up again before Congress. The president’s plan for an “anti-weaponization” fund that could issue financial settlements to people connected to the January 6 insurrection has riven Senate Republicans, and complicated their efforts to settle for good a standoff with Democrats over funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), agencies Trump has tasked with implementing his hardline immigration policies.
Amid the bipartisan outcry, Todd Blanche, acting US attorney general, told lawmakers earlier this week that the administration would not move forward with the fund. But that did not satisfy Schumer, who insisted that Congress should pass a law blocking the money from ever being spent.
Senate Republicans narrowly block bid to bar Trump’s $1.8bn fund to pay allies
Susan Collins of Maine, the only Republican senator representing a state won by Kamala Harris in 2024, supported Chuck Schumer’s amendment, along with Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Jon Husted of Ohio. All are top targets of Democrats in the midterms, and on Wednesday, Fox News released a poll showing Husted trailing his Democratic challenger, former senator Sherrod Brown, by eight percentage points.
Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policies changes facing new scrutiny
Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to US vaccine policies have over the last two months been removed, retracted or placed under investigation by the journals that published them.
Pam Bondi claims Todd Blanche was ‘in charge’ of ‘entire release’ of Epstein files
Former attorney general Pam Bondi told lawmakers that Todd Blanche, the man Donald Trump has lined up to replace her, was “in charge” of the US Department of Justice’s controversial handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Trump claims Bill Pulte will investigate ‘rigged elections’ in temporary intelligence role
Donald Trump has suggested his controversial ally Bill Pulte will investigate “rigged elections” while serving as the country’s top intelligence official, as the US president continues to make unfounded allegations about voting.
But Pulte, whom Trump appointed as acting director of national intelligence earlier this week, will only serve in the role temporarily, the president claimed on Thursday.
Democratic-led states sue to block student loan caps by Trump administration
While the Trump administration has argued that new restrictions on the size of federal student loans will lower tuition costs, public health officials and Democrats say the measures will exacerbate the country’s serious nursing shortage.
As such, a group of 24 Democratic-led states and Washington DC recently sued the federal government seeking to block the new rule, which is scheduled to take effect on 1 July.
Tense governor’s race in California unsettled as vote-counting continues
The California governor’s race remained unsettled on Thursday, as state election officials continued to sift through uncounted primary ballots – a process that could take days or even weeks as voters eagerly await the results.
What else happened today:
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Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for the US Senate, has rejected an explosive new report about his treatment of women, insisting that allegations of abusive behavior are “politically motivated”.
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Hezbollah has rejected a US-brokered ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments, throwing the future of a truce in Lebanon and regional peace negotiations into question.
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The ranking member on the US Senate’s influential finance committee has demanded transparency over a proposed “first-of-its-kind” ICE family and child detention center in Alexandria, Louisiana, citing reporting by the Guardian that first revealed the Trump administration’s plans in March.
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Mexico’s former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has accused US officials of trying to weaken the governing party to strengthen the opposition, amid rising tensions between the two countries over Washington’s investigations into several Mexican governors.
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau deleted at least 2,200 webpages from its website last month, a move advocates say is part of the Trump administration’s latest effort to dismantle the federal consumer finance watchdog.
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Protests in Albania over a proposed luxury resort backed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are scheduled to intensify after opponents rejected an offer from the country’s prime minister “to discuss solutions”.
Catching up? Here’s what happened Wednesday 3 June.
