WASHINGTON (AP) — A standoff between the White House and the Senate remains unresolved after Republican senators defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.Senate Republicans who are returning to Washington on Monday say they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on a new $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies. But Trump has shown little interest in doing so, even after a judge temporarily halted any payouts. It’s unclear how they will settle the dispute. The Trump administration is “going to have to come up with some suggestions and ideas,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said before the Senate left town on May 21. Thune, of South Dakota, said that the settlement money — some of which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — “just makes everything way harder than it should be.”
The impasse over the “anti-weaponization” fund could be an inflection point as Republicans try to keep their majority in this year’s elections and advance their agenda. Trump’s campaign year push to defeat GOP lawmakers who he sees as disloyal, including some of Thune’s most reliable Republican votes in the narrow 53-47 Senate, has only added to the tension.
