Trump’s $1.8 – Sen. Ron Johnson, after meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, called President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion payout fund for alleged victims of government weaponization a “galactic blunder.” The backlash pushed Senate leaders to send lawmaker
Sen. Ron Johnson didn’t mince words after meeting Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. In the hours that followed. the backlash to President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion payout fund for so-called victims of government weaponization spread fast enough to disrupt Senate plans for swift action on major parts of Trump’s agenda.
Johnson—an R-WI senator and a prominent MAGA loyalist—said the Trump administration should have stayed focused on getting the ICE/CBP bill passed. and he framed the decision to unveil the fund while lawmakers were still trying to move that legislation as a major misstep. Speaking to Manu Raju of CNN, Johnson said the timing was wrong and called it a “giant mistake.”.
In Johnson’s telling, the backlash wasn’t just political noise. “Somebody described it as a galactic blunder, and I think that’s probably true,” Raju reported of their conversation.
The political heat didn’t stop at rhetoric. Senate Minority Leader John Thune (R-SD) sent the Senate home following the swift backlash to the Blanche meeting. That decision delayed an expected round of swift voting tied to Trump’s key agenda items via reconciliation—among them funding ICE.
Critics have charged that the fund is designed less to address harms than to reward allies. Thom Tillis (R-NC) previously attacked the idea directly. calling the payout plan “stupid on stilts.” Other GOP opposition has been sharper. with some framing it as a “slush fund” intended to pay Trump allies and donors.
A senior GOP Senate aide. speaking through Reese Gorman of NOTUS. described the reaction as frustration running beyond one policy disagreement. “They have fucked this up on too many levels to count,” the aide said. The criticism aimed both at the size of the payout and at who would benefit. adding: “The only thing more toxic than demanding taxpayers foot the bill for a billion-dollar ballroom is demanding taxpayers give billions of dollars to J6 rioters.”.
The strain here is about more than one line item. Johnson tied his rebuke to the administration’s priorities—urging lawmakers to pass the ICE/CBP bill instead—while GOP leadership treated the backlash as big enough to interrupt the Senate’s schedule for reconciliation votes.
Where the fight lands next will depend on whether the administration and Senate Republicans can steady the timeline they were counting on. For now. the fund—nearly $1.8 billion in payments—has become the flashpoint that delayed the kind of rapid movement on ICE funding and other reconciliation measures that Thune’s operation had been preparing to deliver.
Ron Johnson Todd Blanche Donald Trump weaponization fund ICE/CBP bill reconciliation John Thune Thom Tillis J6 rioters slush fund MAGA revolt