Screaming, yelling and accusations of self-dealing.
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That’s how Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Friday described a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that’s drawn bipartisan opposition.
On his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” the Texas senator described the meeting as “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”
“Fiery does not begin to cut it,” Cruz said. “My guess is there’re probably 45 senators in the room, at least half of them were blasting the attorney general, and they were pissed.”
Senate Republicans met with Blanche on Thursday to discuss the fund, which ultimately derailed a vote on a Republican bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, NBC News previously reported.
Cruz said several of his GOP colleagues felt that they could not politically defend the fund because it appeared as though President Donald Trump “cut a deal with himself.”
“There were multiple senators yelling at the attorney general, saying this feels like self-dealing,” Cruz said.
“I got to tell you, the Republican senators were pissed — people were the entire meeting. They were screaming at the acting attorney general, and he was trying to lay out the legal basis,” Cruz said, adding “the legal basis is quite sound.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to request for comment on Cruz’s characterization of the meeting.
The fund was announced Monday after Trump said he would drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, along with other claims of damages related to a 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and the Russian collusion scandal connected to the 2016 presidential election. Justice Department officials said Monday that the fund came “in exchange” for Trump dropping those claims and would involve a “systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.”
Cruz said on his podcast that if the Senate had gone forward with planned series of votes pertaining to the ICE and Border Patrol bill Thursday night, roughly half of the Republican caucus would have voted with Democrats in favor of amendments seeking to rein in the fund.
He emphasized “the degree of the jailbreak of Republicans who were bolting, who were saying we’re going to vote with the Democrats.”
Cruz warned that if the administration does not modify the anti-weaponization fund by the time Congress comes back into session, “they’ve got a full-on revolt in the Senate.”
When reached for comment on Cruz’s remarks, a White House official told NBC News in a statement Friday that “the Administration appreciated yesterday’s conversation and feedback. We look forward to additional conversations as needed.”
The Senate is scheduled to return to session June 1 — the date Trump said he wanted to sign ICE and Border Patrol funding bill into law.
A growing number of Republicans have raised concerns over the fund.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called the fund a “payout pot for punks,” referencing the fact that the Trump administration had not ruled out the possibility that people convicted of participating in the Jan. 6 riot could be compensated by the fund.
“I think the administration is putting itself in a bad spot,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said Thursday, adding, “Congress has had no input.”
Democrats have widely condemned the fund since it was announced. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrote in a letter to Blanche Wednesday that “the notion of the federal government doling out compensation to rioters” is “absurd and offensive.”
On the other side of the Capitol, Reps. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at prohibiting federal money from being used by the anti-weaponization fund. It came after Fitzpatrick demanded answers on the fund’s legal authority and who is eligible for compensation in a Wednesday letter to Blanche.
