Congress
Faced with Blanche dilemma, Trump chooses revenge
President Donald Trump has a choice: allow changes to a controversial court settlement and secure the confirmation of his former personal lawyer as attorney general, or thumb his nose at a pair of his few remaining Republican critics in Congress.
True to form, he is giving no ground — so far.
Trump’s decision Thursday to signal he would rather pull the nomination of Todd Blanche, his pick to lead the Justice Department, rather than give in to the demands of Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis demonstrated that the president’s desire to thwart his enemies does not end with the demise of their political careers.
Both Republican senators will leave Congress at the end of the year after running afoul of Trump, and both have found a degree of independence since becoming untethered from needing to keep in his good graces.
But their efforts to exert leverage and seek to curtail a controversial settlement agreement reached in May between Trump and the IRS only prompted the president to double down. He announced in a Truth Social post that Blanche would remain as acting attorney general “in any event” and that he would potentially withdraw and resubmit the nomination “after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office” in January.
Tillis, who announced he would not seek reelection last year after clashing with Trump over Medicaid cuts in his home state of North Carolina, betrayed little surprise when asked about Trump’s reticence to bargain over the IRS settlement.
“Look up the definition of recalcitrant,” he said.
Cornyn, who lost his bid for renomination to a fifth term representing Texas in May after Trump endorsed a scandal-prone opponent, brushed off the accusation that he was simply seeking revenge by blocking Blanche.
He called Trump’s claim “a convenient excuse, but it’s certainly not true.” And he warned the president that trying to wait him out would be a “gamble.”
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” he said.
The subtext of Cornyn’s remark was that Republicans might have a smaller majority if they have one at all — raising the question that if Trump can’t strike a deal with members of his own party to advance his prized nominee, what will governing with Democrats possibly look like?
One of Trump’s frequent Democratic sparring partners from his first term in office — Sen. Adam Schiff of California — said the pressure from Cornyn and Tillis is only a hint of what is to come and that the president should get used to “a restoration of checks and balances.”
“I would hope what it will mean both for the remainder of this Congress and the next is that Congress will once again assume the role of being a counterbalance to the power of the executive,” said Schiff, who led Democrats’ first Trump impeachment attempt. “We largely reneged on that.”
The battle of Blanche has been especially pitched given Trump’s personal interests. Not only did Blanche represent Trump in multiple cases brought in the years before the president’s reelection, Cornyn and Tillis were seeking to curtail a deal that personally benefited him.
Both men sought to ensure a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” set out in the agreement text could not be revived and to restrict the terms of an audit immunity agreement applying to Trump, his family and business.
It’s possible a deal could still be reached. Cornyn and Tillis met with Blanche Thursday afternoon after Trump issued his ultimatum. One person granted anonymity to describe the private meeting said the two sides were “working collaboratively now” and that it was good “they were finally all face to face.”
Ahead of the meeting, both senators insinuated that the White House — not Blanche — was the obstacle to revising the settlement and moving forward with the confirmation. Cornyn explicitly blamed Trump, while Tillis said the presidents’ advisers could be to blame.
“They’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be,” Cornyn said Wednesday. “We’ve tried to make it easy for them, and they simply refuse to take our help.”
Both said they believed there was a desire in Trump’s orbit to resurrect the payout fund at some point to direct federal settlements to the president’s political allies.
GOP colleagues also chalked up Thursday’s drama to the White House not wanting to give in — whether to protect the original settlement agreement or to deny Trump’s critics a victory.“Clearly, the White House does not want to do what Senator Cornyn and Senator Tillis were asking,” said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she shared Cornyn and Tillis’ qualms about the settlement and asked Blanche in her own private meeting to put his oral commitments in writing.
“I have expressed the same concerns, and I am waiting for the same answers,” said Murkowski, an occasional Trump critic who is up for reelection in 2028.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
The ranking Democrat on the House Oversight committee is demanding the White House answer questions related to President Donald Trump’s decision to ban BLN, MS NOW and Blue Light News from the White House, calling it the president’s “most blatant, assault on press freedom.”
In a letter sent Monday to White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) requested that Cheung provide by Oct. 5 a detailed account of when and how he was informed of the ban, how he responded, who was consulted before the decision, the legal justification for it, the facts the White House relied on and whether the outlets had any opportunity to respond.
“The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, not freedom from criticism,” wrote Garcia. “The American people need to understand what consideration—if any—the White House gave to this serious and unprecedented decision to protect the President’s ego.”
Garcia also asked for all White House staff documents and communications about the ban and for any other relevant materials to be preserved.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump on Friday announced that he was seeking to block journalists from Blue Light News, MS NOW and BLN from the White House, complaining about “constant ‘reporting’” of what he called “FICTION and LIES.” The Trump administration first denied the media outlets entry into the White House grounds on Saturday morning.
The three news organizations are now jointly suing Trump, Cheung and two other top advisers in a bid to immediately restore access for their reporters, calling the ban a “direct assault on the First Amendment.”
Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.
Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers said Monday that the war with Iran “needs to end” to bring prices down, making him the second Republican to break with the White House on the issue that day.
“The war with Iran needs to end, and end quickly,” Rogers said in a video published Monday to social media.
“Michigan families can’t afford to wait,” he added. “Here’s what we can do now: place a temporary embargo on Diesel exports. American energy should provide relief to American families first.”
Earlier Monday, Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican Senate candidate in Iowa, expressed similar frustrations about the war’s impact on Iowans’ pocketbooks. Both Rogers and Hinson called for a suspension of the state and federal gas tax in their statements.
Ahead of the midterms, GOP candidates have expressed concern about the war in the Middle East, saying it has made it difficult for them to run on affordability. The war with Iran, which began in February, has led to marked increases in gas and diesel prices. On Monday, regular gas was just over $4.45 per gallon, according to AAA; diesel prices hit a record of $6.50 per gallon.
Rogers, a former representative, is facing Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the race for a Senate seat in battleground Michigan.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins warned Monday that President Donald Trump would be defying Congress if he moves forward with empowering top political appointees to decide who gets grant funding for health research.
“Any attempt to politicize grantmaking … is contrary to congressional intent,” the Maine Republican said in a statement.
Trump wants to issue an executive order to seat White House budget director Russ Vought and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya on a board that would decide which grants the NIH should fund, according to two administration officials granted anonymity to describe a private meeting in the Oval Office last Friday.
Following reports of that meeting, Collins noted Monday that the stopgap funding patch Congress cleared this summer bars the White House from finalizing a separate proposed rule to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants, or “any substantially similar” plan.
The Office of Management and Budget “should not be involved in agency decisions on the awards of grants,” Collins said, adding that “imposing a political review … undermines the long-standing principle that the government funds awards based on scientific need and merit, rather than political ideology.”
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, called the White House’s latest idea an attempt to “take control over federal funding, so they can use it to punish their perceived enemies and reward their friends.”
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, warned that the move would mean “a single political appointee could kill a cancer study or an Alzheimer’s trial with no scientific reason at all.”
A spokesperson for House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole did not return a request for comment regarding the Oklahoma Republican’s position.
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