Friday Morning Politics: President Trump's Slush Fund; War Powers Rebuke

**Tiffany Hansen** (0:00)
And Latif Nasser on Why We Get Goosebumps. But first, President Trump did not have a very great week, politically speaking.
Some in his own party are at least partially responsible for that. First, there was the motion put forth in the Senate to kill the president's $1.8 billion fund for people who claim to be unfairly prosecuted by the federal government. Money of that fund was part of a bill seeking funding to the tune of $70 billion for the administration's immigration crackdown.
Opposition to the fund meant money for one of the president's signature policy initiatives was also in question at one point. But that's not all. Also this week, a bipartisan majority in the House voted to end the war in Iran with a war powers resolution, and Trump's endorsed candidate in the Iowa gubernatorial race lost to a challenger, and some in his own party publicly questioned the qualifications of his pick to be the Director of National Intelligence. With us to talk about all of this is Elana Schor. She's the Senior Washington Editor at Semafor. Hi, Elana. Welcome back.

**Elana Schor** (1:08)
Thanks for having me.

**Tiffany Hansen** (1:09)
Let's just start with this news of the day, which is this fact that the Senate did pass this $70 billion GOP immigration bill.
Now, if you can help me understand this, as I hear it, there was an amendment attached to that bill, to the immigration bill, that included this $1.8 billion slush fund that we're talking about. That was taken out. The bill was passed without any additional amendments regarding that slush fund. Am I right?

**Elana Schor** (1:45)
That's correct. Although it took a long time to get there. There was, I believe, more than two hours on one particular vote in which Republicans spent trying to twist the arm of one senator to support removing all language on the fund. That ultimately allowed, stay with me here, a bunch of senators who actually haven't even criticized the fund, but are in tough re-election races to effectively vote against it.
It was a bit of political theater that took a long time.

**Tiffany Hansen** (2:14)
There was an attempt to go back and put language on this as it relates to that $1.8 billion slush fund. I'm calling it a slush fund. I don't know if that's necessarily accurate. A fund to essentially for folks who feel they've been wronged by the federal government or persecuted, prosecuted by the federal government. There was an attempt, was there not, to put language back on this bill that forbids it. So not just taking it out, but also taking it the next step further to forbid it. That didn't happen either.

**Elana Schor** (2:48)
That's correct. And the reason why that even happened, a leading proponent of this effort being a Republican, Tom Tillis, Senator from North Carolina, is that the Justice Department hasn't put anything in writing that this fund is dead. It's merely offered its word, granted, under oath and congressional testimony, but that's not the same as on paper.

**Tiffany Hansen** (3:10)
Well, the president appeared to, you know, through his, you know, spokespeople, to back down fairly quickly on this fund. Is that a fair assessment? You know, so it was like, oh, never mind.

**Elana Schor** (3:24)
To be honest with you, I was shocked at how long it took for them to back down.

**Tiffany Hansen** (3:28)
Oh, okay.

**Elana Schor** (3:29)
How vociferous the pushback was from a Republican party that has gotten pretty used to doing whatever Trump wants. It took a bit, it took almost 10 days for them to do this.

**Tiffany Hansen** (3:41)
Okay. And do you foresee at any point that some specific language about this particular fund will make its way in again somewhere at some point?

**Elana Schor** (3:55)
That's a good question. To be quite honest with you, not unless the DOJ attempts to essentially resuscitate it under another name, which again, to be clear, with nothing in writing, they could do.
Obviously, a smaller size would be very likely. But if that happens, yes, I would expect it to come roaring back. Otherwise, until after the elections, when Democrats may have the power to do this, I would expect it to remain as it is.

**Tiffany Hansen** (4:23)
We're talking with Elana Schor, who's the senior Washington editor at Semafor, about some of the political news this week in terms of some in the president's own party, pushing back a little bit on the president and his agenda. Do you have questions about the ways in which we're seeing the members of the president's party stand up against his policies? Would you, do you think there is an opportunity here for his opponents? Do you see these rebukes as symbolic? Do you think there is a change afoot? You can call us, you can text us 212-433-9692, 212-433-9692.