The Dictatorship

House passes immigration reconciliation bill — without blocking Trump’s compensation fund

Published

3 weeks ago

June 10, 2026

Jun. 9, 2026, 5:25 PM EDT

After House Republicans initially showed opposition to President Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund, the House passed the GOP’s immigration enforcement reconciliation bill on Tuesday without any legislative restrictions on the proposed $1.776 billion pot of money.

The bill — which funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for three years — passed on a party-line 214-212 vote.

The outcome reflects both the political and procedural realities facing Republicans in Washington, as they navigate razor-thin majorities, unified control of government and the ever-present risk of Trump’s wrath.

Procedurally, House Republicans had virtually no opportunity to offer amendments restricting the fund, a consequence of the chamber’s leadership-driven process. In the Senate, meanwhile, the parliamentarian ruled that most fund-related amendments would require 60 votes — a threshold supporters just didn’t meet.

Ultimately, all but one Republican senator — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — voted for the bill, a remarkable reversal for several lawmakers who had previously said they couldn’t support the package without language blocking the fund. The White House had also signaled that Trump could veto the legislation if it included restrictions on the program.

Politically, many Republicans concluded that sinking the party’s signature immigration bill wasn’t a tenable outcome, particularly given Trump’s recent penchant for retribution against Republican naysayers.

In the end, GOP lawmakers opted to fight another day.

“A lot of us would like to see the weaponization fund be killed and buried forever,” a moderate House Republican told MS NOW, requesting anonymity to discuss the internal sentiments.

But, this lawmaker added, “not funding border patrol and ICE is, I think, unhelpful.”

“Holding something hostage for something on weaponization, I think, would be difficult to achieve, especially since the Senate’s already passed it,” this Republican said.

A number of Republicans toyed with opposing the reconciliation bill.

Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., caused some drama on the floor after he unexpectedly voted no. (After a lengthy discussion with House GOP leaders, he ultimately switched his vote.)

Of course, more moderate House Republicans could have withheld their support until GOP leaders added language prohibiting Trump’s compensation fund — as some Senate Republicans wanted. And about a dozen conservative Republicans initially held out on supporting a rule to set up debate of the bill on Tuesday, arguing that GOP leaders should add language from another hardline immigration bill — H.R. 2, a sweeping measure to install more restrictive asylum rules, require businesses to use the federal “E-verify” system for worker authorization, and remove certain protections unaccompanied children.

In the end, every Republican voted for the bill and every Democrat voted against it. The only lawmaker to technically cross party lines was Independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of California — who was a Republican up until March and usually sides with the GOP.

Not every Republican was thrilled with that outcome.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who’s retiring at the end of this year, unleashed on his GOP colleagues in a lengthy email on Tuesday, slamming them for voting down his amendment that would have blocked the fund.

The result, he argued, will come back to bite Republicans during the November midterm elections.

“I’m sure most of you would prefer to move forward, but I believe we will look back at this experience as yet another reason why we will have historic headwinds against us in November,” Tillis wrote in the email, which was obtained by MS NOW.

“We missed an opportunity to remove a political albatross (the 1776 Fund) from around the necks of our colleagues who are in cycle,” Tillis said. “Instead, we added weight to that albatross by having 41 members vote to protect the program.”

Tillis’ amendment overwhelmingly failed in a 15-84 vote, with just 12 Republicans and three Democrats voting in support. Hours later, Tillis voted for the reconciliation bill after clearly saying he’d be a “no” without language pushing back on the anti-weaponization fund.

With the immigration enforcement package now in the rearview mirror, some House Republicans are setting their sights on a new strategy to block the anti-weaponization fund: A standalone bill sponsored by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., to prevent federal funds from being used to pay claims submitted to the fund.

The push for the bill comes after Trump over the weekend said he still thinks the weaponization fund is “a great idea.”

“And so do many other Republicans,” Trump said.

“If they get it approved, that’s great,” he said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”

The comments flew in the face of remarks made by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told lawmakers last week that the administration is “not moving forward with the fund. Period.”

Blanche’s comments seemed to calm the nerves of some lawmakers and clear the way for passage of the reconciliation bill without any legislative restrictions.

Fitzpatrick and Suozzi are planning to file a discharge petition to force a vote on the measure this week, a source familiar with the matter told MS NOW, a posture that is already prompting consternation in the Republican ranks.

During a closed-door House GOP conference meeting on Tuesday, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., urged members not to sign discharge petitions, according to a source in the room, as top lawmakers try to beat-back at a process that circumvents leadership’s wishes.

Fitzpatrick is firing back.

In a post on Xhe said discharge petitions wouldn’t be needed if the House floor “was managed properly.”

“A successful discharge petition is clear and direct evidence of a poorly managed House Floor—because it demonstrates that the will of the majority of the People is being thwarted by the privileged few,” he wrote. “Leadership of both parties have been guilty of this for years.”

He added that the rise of discharge petitions in this Congress was just “further evidence of the brokenness of the two-party system—and the rise of Independent voters is a direct manifestation of this.”

But the limits of that strategy are hard to ignore. As forcefully as Fitzpatrick opposed the anti-weaponization fund, he ultimately gave up his most powerful bargaining chip. By backing the reconciliation bill without restrictions on the program, he helped clear the path for legislation that is almost certain to become law, while pinning his hopes on a standalone measure that’s almost certain to never become law.

Passage of the ICE and border patrol bill puts a bookend on a months-long fight over the administration’s immigration crackdown. That battle began in January, following the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, which prompted Democrats to demand immigration reforms in exchange for additional funding and contributed to a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.

The dispute escalated in March, when Republicans agreed to separate ICE and Border Patrol funding from the broader DHS appropriations process.

But the disagreement reached its peak last month, when the administration blindsided many Republican lawmakers with the anti-weaponization fund — a proposal that exposed rare divisions within the GOP and continues to generate resistance even after Congress delivered Trump a major legislative victory.

Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.

Syedah Asghar

Syedah Asghar covers Congress for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year

Published

25 minutes ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Tuesday shows, locking in profits while his investors were socked with losses.

Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate. Fueling their rise were billionaire investors and Trump’s own move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.

Trump also took in millions last year from selling Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. The sale of Trump-branded watches alone brought in $4.7 million.

The 927-page disclosure form paints a stark, if incomplete picture of the massive growth of the president’s wealth since taking office last January through a web of business interests — many of which have benefited from the policy moves of Trump’s own government. Trump has insisted that his sons direct his finances but the arrangement rejects the conflict of interest protections that his recent predecessors in office had instituted.

Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at $6 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2024.

The Trump business is growing abroad

The rise of crypto relative to Trump’s property is especially noteworthy because he first rode to office boasting of his property wins. It’s also remarkable because that mainstay business also boomed last year. Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas that amounts to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid and other important matters while the family business was striking the deals.

A property in the United Arab Emirates generated $10.4 million for the Trump business last year. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company $9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him $5 million each.

One of his prominent domestic properties, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, notched big growth last year, too.

Sign up for Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the biggest headlines of the day.

Trump took in $77 million from the property, a 50% jump from the year earlier when he was just another citizen, as heads of state and business people flocked to it in his new term.

The disclosure report doesn’t give profit figures, just revenue, so it’s impossible to know how much he is earning.

Trump is now the billion-dollar crypto man

Trump said Wednesday that most of his gains last year came from the stock market and he’s just riding along with everyone else.

“We’re all profiting,” he said. “I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”

But crypto was clearly the big revenue generator last year in part due his own moves since taking office — pushing policies friendly to the industry and reversing a Biden administration regulatory crackdown.

The regulators are still worried. Before Trump’s World Liberty began selling “governance tokens,” they issued warnings about this new kind of crypto asset, saying that unlike stocks, the tokens offer no ownership stake in the issuing company, just voting power on certain corporate policies, and are difficult to value.

Buyers pounced anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent $75 million on the tokens and $200 million on the souvenir coins. In February last year, a federal lawsuit charging him with duping investors was paused before being settled for a $10 million fine.

The billionaire, Justin Sun, has repeatedly denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, investors have seen the value of their Trump-tied holdings drop significantly.

The price of World Liberty tokens has fallen 80% since they started trading in September. And the Trump souvenir coins that spiked to more than $74 in the days after launching in January 2025 now sell for $1.68.

The White House says Trump only acts in the public interest

The White House has repeatedly said Trump put his business in a trust managed by his sons and is not involved in its decisions and that there are no ethics issues to discuss.

“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”

The Trump umbrella company, the Trump Organization, has said its deals overseas were with private companies, not with governments.

Still, it is difficult to know what is truly private in countries ruled by authoritarians, royal families and one-party governments.

For a new Trump resort in Vietnam, the report shows Trump took in $5 million last year after the ruling Communist Party sent its deputy prime minister to sign off on the deal and, according to The New York Times, pushed farmers off the land to make way for the construction.

Whether the deals played any role in changing U.S. policies in ways these countries sought is nearly impossible to know, but the countries did get what they wanted.

Vietnam got tariff relief. Qatar got access to advanced U.S. technology previously off limits, and Saudi Arabia got U.S. fighter jets it had coveted for years.

___

AP White House reporter Josh Boak contributed from Washington.

The Dictatorship

‘REGIME CHANGE’ sold 300,000 copies…

Published

26 minutes ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

It turns out readers still want to learn more about President Donald Trump after all.

“Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the l atest book on the Trump presidencywritten by political journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, has sold more than 300,000 copies in its opening week, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

They’re the kind of sales that numerous works about Trump reached during his first term, but had been rare during his second term. Publishers had speculated that the public had tired of Trump books, believing there was little left to know.

The total figures include preorders, print book sales, ebooks, and e-audiobooks and orders that have yet to be fulfilled because of demand, the publishing house said. Simon & Schuster said the book is into its third hard copy printing, with 200,000 copies on order, after it sold out quickly in bookstores and on Amazon. It’s the best first-week clip of any hardcover nonfiction book in 2026.

The book covers the first 14 months of Trump’s second presidency and takes readers inside the West Wing, White House residence and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, aboard Air Force One and on foreign trips with the president.

Trump, who has a long history with Haberman from her days covering him as a New York City business and society figure, has trashed the book as “mostly made up.” Haberman and Swan are now New York Times reporters.

Their manuscript depicts meticulous details of Trump’s military decisions, how he’s wielded the power of the Justice Department against his political opponents, his conversations with other power players, and the time and attention he’s devoted to remaking the aesthetics and structure of the White House.

The book spells out a thesis that Trump himself believes: Had he not lost the 2020 election, he would not be as powerful in his second term as he is now — emboldening him to trample norms, dismantle established institutions and push the limits of presidential power.

Haberman and Swan have been featured regularly across news talk shows promoting the book and sharing details of their reporting, including a sit-down with Trump in which he boasted about being compared to some of history’s great villains.

Sean Manning, vice president and publisher at Simon & Schuster, said the book “has entered the national conversation” and will hold up as “a work of historic importance.”

The Dictatorship

Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill

Published

7 hours ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill

As a rule, JD Vance seems to go out of his way to say whatever Donald Trump wants him to say, but from time to time, contradictions emerge between the president and the vice president.

Take the recently passed housing bill, for example, which arrived at the White House earlier this week.

As part of an interview Tuesday night with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, the Ohio Republican said, “Frankly, Laura, I would love it if Democrats were willing — you know, not that they will agree with Republicans all the time — but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better. You know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise. That’s not what they’re talking about.”

I realize the vice president must be very busy, but it really isn’t that difficult to keep up with the basics of current events. In this case, when Vance said Democrats are unwilling to work with Republicans on priorities such as “lowering housing prices,” he turned reality on its head. It was literally last week when Democrats offered unanimous support for a bipartisan bill to address housing prices — legislation that members such as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts helped to write.

Democrats recognized that doing so would offer the GOP some election-season bragging rights, but Democrats did it anyway because they have prioritized governing and “actually making the lives of American citizens better” over partisan considerations.

But Vance didn’t just contradict reality; he also contradicted his boss.

Just one day before the vice president brazenly misled a national television audience, Trump was asked about the pending housing bill. “It’s very bipartisan; that means the Democrats like it,” the president saidwhile acknowledging that he hasn’t yet decided whether to sign it.

In other words, when Vance said policymakers “could have some real bipartisan compromise,” he seemed indifferent to the fact that we’ve already had some real bipartisan compromise — a detail that even Trump was willing to acknowledge a day earlier.

Whether the vice president will suffer for publicly contradicting the president remains to be seen.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”