A bipartisan majority in the Senate blocked an amendment that would have permanently killed President Donald Trump's nearly $2 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, even after the administration itself said it was no longer pursuing the program.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, offered the amendment during the Senate's marathon voting spree on a nearly $70 billion GOP immigration enforcement package. His proposal would have prevented the fund from ever returning and redirected the money to the nation's fraud fund. Both Republicans and Democrats voted it down, Fox News Digital reported.
A dozen Republicans broke ranks to support Tillis. That number signals real discomfort within the GOP conference over the fund's existence, but it wasn't enough.
The anti-weaponization fund emerged last month as part of a settlement between the Trump family and the Internal Revenue Service. The arrangement drew immediate scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties. Republicans feared that without proper guardrails, people convicted of assaulting police officers during the January 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill could access taxpayer dollars.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche vowed that the administration would no longer pursue the fund. The White House and the DOJ both signaled they were not moving forward with it. Tillis pointed to those assurances, and then asked the obvious question.
As Tillis put it to his colleagues:
"Why not use this moment to codify that?"
He warned that leaving the fund in legal limbo would create a political headache for every Republican senator facing voters before Election Day. The concern was practical, not ideological. If the administration says the fund is dead, why not put it in the ground?
"Otherwise, you're exposing every one of our members who are in cycle to having to deal with this between today and Election Day. And that makes no sense for something that the White House says they're not moving forward, or the DOJ says they're not moving forward."
That argument did not carry the day. The amendment failed after hours of delays at the onset of the voting spree, and the defeat may effectively end the push to codify a permanent ban on the fund.
Senate Democrats despise the anti-weaponization fund. That much is clear. But diverting the money elsewhere proved to be, as the reporting described it, "a bridge too far for nearly the entire caucus." Democrats apparently preferred to keep the fund as a political weapon rather than redirect its dollars to fraud prevention.
Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, joined Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana in signing an amicus brief that blasted the fund. Cassidy signed on Thursday. He also has his own amendment designed to ensure the fund will not return. Yet when Tillis forced the issue on the floor, the votes weren't there.
The pattern is familiar. Senate Republicans have previously pushed back on the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund approved by the Justice Department, but translating that opposition into binding legislation has proved far harder.
When asked in the Oval Office on Wednesday about the fate of the fund, Trump gave a mixed signal. He said he would need to consult attorneys.
"I'd have to ask the lawyers. I don't know."
But he also made his personal feelings plain:
"The weaponization fund, as far as I'm concerned, was a beautiful thing. I love it. I think it's so important."
Tillis noted that Trump's remarks ran "to the contrary" of the administration's official position that the fund was being shelved. That gap, between what the DOJ promised and what the president said he wanted, gave senators on both sides reason to hesitate.
For Republicans loyal to Trump, voting to permanently kill something the president called "a beautiful thing" carried obvious risk. For Democrats, the calculation was simpler: why help the GOP clean up its own mess?
This is not the first time Trump has faced resistance from Senate Republicans on a priority he championed. But the dynamics here are stranger. The White House said it was walking away from the fund. The president said he loved it. And the Senate declined to settle the question either way.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky offered a different theory of the case. He argued that if Trump revives the fund down the road, Congress can address it then. No need to act preemptively.
"People say, 'But, oh, Trump may someday again do the weaponization fund from his remarks yesterday.' Well, then address it if he tries to do it, if it's unpopular. People can address it when it happens."
That logic has a certain libertarian tidiness. But it ignores the political reality Tillis identified: vulnerable Republican incumbents will spend the next year answering for a fund that officially doesn't exist but hasn't officially been killed.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans advanced the broader $72 billion immigration bill after dropping White House ballroom funds, a sign the conference is willing to trim controversial items when the pressure is high enough. The anti-weaponization fund apparently didn't clear that bar.
Tillis also told colleagues he would not support the upcoming budget reconciliation package if it included $1 billion for President Trump's ballroom, a separate spending item that has drawn its own criticism. The North Carolina senator has positioned himself as a fiscal guardrail within the conference, willing to challenge his own party's leadership when he believes taxpayer money is being misallocated.
Cassidy's parallel effort, his own amendment to block the fund's return, remains in play. But Tillis's defeat sends a signal about where the votes stand today.
The dozen Republican votes for the amendment represent a meaningful bloc. They reflect what the reporting described as "a broad distaste" for the fund and for any future administration plans to revive it. But broad distaste is not the same as a majority, and in the Senate, close only counts in procedural footnotes.
The episode follows a pattern that has defined this Congress. The SAVE Act amendment fell short after Republican defections on a separate Trump-aligned measure. And Trump has pressed Senate Republicans to change the rules to advance his agenda, with mixed results.
The fund's legal status remains unresolved. The administration says it won't pursue it. The president says he loves it. The Senate had a chance to settle the matter permanently and chose not to.
For Republican senators heading into competitive races, the ambiguity is a gift to Democratic ad-makers. Every campaign cycle, voters are asked to judge their representatives not just on what they did, but on what they refused to do when they had the chance.
When both parties agree a program should end, and neither party will vote to end it, the problem isn't the program. It's the institution.