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GOP leaders abruptly cancel House vote on Iran war powers, shielding Trump from rebuke

2026-05-21T22:44:17.628Z / CNN

By Manu Raju, Camila DeChalus, Morgan Rimmer

Updated 57 min ago
Updated May 21, 2026, 7:07 PM ET
PUBLISHED May 21, 2026, 6:44 PM ET

A view of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on May 21.

Drew Angerer/AFP/Getty Images

Summary

• House GOP leaders canceled a vote Thursday on a resolution to limit President Donald Trump’s war powers in Iran.
• Republicans were on the verge of losing the vote due to absences.
• Democrats have forced multiple votes to limit Trump’s war powers, efforts that have gained more GOP support in recent weeks.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

House GOP leaders abruptly canceled a vote Thursday on a resolution to limit President Donald Trump’s war powers in Iran just as Republicans were on the verge of losing the vote due to absences.

The resolution was introduced by New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The congressman told reporters Wednesday that he thought House Speaker Mike Johnson had been stalling a vote on the measure.

“A lot of my Republican colleagues are feeling the pressure back home when they’re looking at the cost of food, the cost of gas,” he said on Capitol Hill.

Democrats have repeatedly forced votes to limit Trump’s war powers in both the House and the Senate – a campaign that has slowly picked up more GOP support in recent weeks.

Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern spoke on the House floor to ask what was happening with the Iran war powers resolution that had been set to be voted on.

“Are we not voting on it because the American people are sick and tired of this illegal war that is costing tens of billions of dollars? Gas prices are through the roof. People can’t afford, people can’t afford their groceries. Is that why you’re pulling it?” he said.

Meeks similarly criticized the move to cancel the vote.

“Here we are on the eve of Memorial Day, with prices for gasoline going up, prices for food going up. We had a vote because of this president’s war of choice that was going to pass, we had the votes without question, and they knew it, and as a result they’re playing a political game, they’re cheating and have delayed the vote until we get back,” the congressman told reporters after the vote was delayed.

Meeks told reporters the vote is now expected to take place in early June after the chamber returns from its Memorial Day recess.

Earlier this week, the Senate advanced a similar resolution to limit Trump’s ability to carry out military action against Iran without congressional approval.

The cancelled House vote comes after President Donald Trump told reporters earlier this week that he believes the US campaign against Iran has been popular among Americans.

“Look, everyone tells me it’s unpopular, but I think it’s very popular when you, when they hear that it’s having to do with nuclear weapons, weapons that could take out Los Angeles, could take out major cities very quick,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

A recent CNN poll showed 77% – including a majority of Republicans – say that Trump’s policies have increased the cost of living in their own community.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Bipartisan House bill would ban use of federal money for DOJ’s “anti-weaponization” fund

Updated May 21, 2026 / 4:44 PM EDT / CBS News

By Caitlin Yilek Politics Reporter
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

Read Full Bio

Washington — Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York introduced a bill Thursday to ban the use of federal money for paying out claims from the Justice Department’s new “anti-weaponization” fund.

The bill, titled the Bipartisan Transparency for American Taxpayers Act, comes as Republicans fight over the nearly $1.8 billion fund that was established to compensate people who claim they were improperly targeted or investigated by the government. Allies and supporters of the president, including some of those involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, have said they plan to submit claims for payouts.

The fund was created as part of a settlement of a suit by President Trump against the IRS over a leak of his tax returns, a highly unusual arrangement that has elicited strong criticism from Democrats and a growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Fitzpatrick and Suozzi’s two-page bill says “no federal funds … may be used for the payment of any claim submitted to the Anti-Weaponization Fund, established by the Department of Justice on May 18, 2026.”

“Congress has a constitutional responsibility to protect taxpayer dollars and oversee federal spending,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “Taxpayer dollars will not become a discretionary payout fund. Transparency is not optional. Accountability is not negotiable.”

File photo: Reps. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York, left, and Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania, at the U.S. Capitol. Kent Nishimura / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Suozzi said the “slush fund” would set a “dangerous precedent.”

In a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday, Fitzpatrick expressed “urgent concern” about the fund, which was established “with no oversight or approval from Congress.” He asked that Blanche respond to him by June 1 about where the money is coming from, who would be eligible to receive it and under what authority the fund was created.

On Thursday, opposition to the DOJ fund derailed hopes for passage of Republicans’ reconciliation package to provide money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for three years, which GOP leaders were hoping to get through both chambers by the end of the week to meet Mr. Trump’s June 1 deadline.

美国务卿：美伊谈判出现一些“好迹象”

2026年5月22日 07:02 / 联合早报

美国务卿：美伊谈判出现一些“好迹象”

美国国务卿鲁比奥5月21日前往瑞典参加北约外长会议，他在佛州霍姆斯特德空军预备役基地登机前向媒体发表讲话。 （法新社）

美国和伊朗在伊朗的浓缩铀库存和霍尔木兹海峡的控制权问题上仍然坚持对立立场，但美国国务卿鲁比奥称谈判中出现一些“好迹象”。

路透社报道，鲁比奥星期四（5月21日）说：“确实有一些好迹象，但我不想过于乐观……所以，让我们看看未来几天会发生什么。”

一名资深的伊朗消息人士同日告诉路透社，虽然双方尚未达成协议，但分歧已经缩小。他透露，伊朗的铀浓缩问题以及德黑兰对霍尔木兹海峡的控制仍然是症结所在。

21日油价在剧烈波动的交易中大幅震荡，因为战争解决方案的前景不明朗而走低。美国总统特朗普当天誓言，美国最终将拿到伊朗的高浓缩铀。

他在白宫对记者说：“我们会弄到手。我们不需要也不想要。我们拿到之后可能会把它销毁，但我们决不让他们拥有（浓缩铀）。”

在特朗普发表这番讲话前，伊朗两名消息人士透露，伊朗最高领袖穆杰塔巴已下令禁止将浓缩铀库存运往国外。

Former Harris campaign official reacts to DNC’s 2024 ‘autopsy’

7:36 PM EDT, Thu May 21, 2026 / CNN Politics

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/video/election-2024-donald-trump-kamala-harris-dnc-autopsy-lead-jake-tapper

Former Harris campaign official reacts to DNC’s 2024 ‘autopsy’

The Lead

Rob Flaherty, who was the Deputy Campaign Manager for the Biden 2024 campaign and then the Harris 2024 campaign, joins The Lead.

0:59 • Source: CNN

Trump admin pushes back on ‘slush fund’ attacks against Anti-Weaponization Fund and lays out who qualifies

2026-05-21 5:12pm EDT / Fox News

Fund emerged from a settlement between Trump and the IRS over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax records

By Elaine Mallon Fox News

Published May 21, 2026 5:12pm EDT | Updated May 21, 2026 5:44pm EDT

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6396089330112

Acting AG Blanche grilled at Senate hearing over compensation fund

Fox News chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reports on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testifying before a Senate panel about a compensation fund for alleged victims of government weaponization on ‘Special Report.’

NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The Trump administration says the $1.778 billion Justice Department “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will compensate Americans unfairly targeted by politicized federal investigations on a “case-by-case” basis, pushing back on critics who have portrayed the program as a taxpayer-funded payout for Jan. 6 rioters and Trump allies.

Heated dispute over the fund centers on who will ultimately benefit from it, with Trump administration officials saying it is intended to compensate individuals harmed by “weaponized” federal investigations, such as pro-lifers targeted by the Biden administration, while critics in both parties fear it could allow politically connected figures or some Jan. 6 defendants to seek taxpayer-funded payments.

“Republicans can apply for it. Democrats can apply for it,” Vice President J.D. Vance said during a Tuesday White House briefing in answer to the critics. “If Hunter Biden wants to apply for this particular fund, he is welcome to.”

The Anti-Weaponization Fund is unusual because it emerged from a lawsuit settlement between Trump and the IRS, an agency he oversees as president, raising concerns among lawmakers and commentators about potential conflicts of interest. Its creation caught GOP lawmakers by surprise and has derailed Senate negotiations on a $72 billion package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol — with several Republicans joining Democrats in calling it a “slush fund.”

REPUBLICANS RECOIL AS TRUMP’S BILLION-DOLLAR DOJ ‘SLUSH FUND’ FOR ALLIES THREATENS ICE, BORDER PATROL PLAN

An image shows the Department of Justice building with an overlay of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was deployed to Capitol Hill on Thursday to smooth things over. But according to several sources, the meeting was contentious and more than one Republican senator blew up at the DOJ head.

“The Acting Attorney General met with Senators today, and there was a healthy discussion on the settlement,” a DOJ spokesperson said after the meeting Thursday. “He made clear that the Anti-Weaponization Fund announced Monday has nothing to do with reconciliation, indeed not a single dime from the money the President is seeking in reconciliation would go toward anything having to do with the Fund. We will continue to work with the Senate to get critical reconciliation funds approved.”

MS NOW contributor Joe Scarborough has alleged that the Anti-Weaponization Fund would be funneled to those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. On his first day in office, Trump issued pardons and commutations to more than 1,500 people involved in the Capitol riots.

“We got this billion-dollar ‘Marie Antoinette’ ballroom, now that they’re talking about funding and $1 billion plus slush fund for people who beat the hell out of cops,” Scarborough said. “It is a slush fund, a weaponization slush fund for supporters of Donald Trump, JD Vance and the Republican Party.”

But the Trump administration’s grievances with the “weaponization” of the Justice Department extend far beyond Biden-era prosecutions of those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot.

Biden’s Justice Department prosecuted more than 50 pro-life activists who were accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) between 2021 and 2024. Since returning to office, Trump pardoned dozens of pro-life activists, some of whom were serving jail time.

The Trump Justice Department has also accused Biden-era officials of “zealously pursuing” prosecutions against Christians in its “2026 Report by the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,” potentially opening the door for another category of people who could seek compensation through the fund.

Still, Trump faces criticism over the fund even from his own party. Sen. John Thune, R-SD, the top Republican leader in the Senate, said he wasn’t a “big fan” of the fund’s creation and that he “was not sure exactly how they intend to use it.”

BIDEN DOJ WEAPONIZED FACE ACT AGAINST PRO-LIFE AMERICANS, 882-REPORT ALLEGES

“I think that there are, and will continue to be, a lot of questions around that, that the administration is going to have to answer,” Thune said.

Justice Department officials and some legal experts say the fund, while unusual and politically controversial, falls within the government’s legal authority and that payments aren’t guaranteed.

The Anti-Weaponization Fund was born out of a settlement between President Donald Trump and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump filed the lawsuit against the IRS in January over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax records.

A sign for the Internal Revenue Service is seen outside its headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 13, 2025.(Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Claims will be determined by a five-person board appointed by the Attorney General, with at least one member selected with consultation with congressional leadership, according to a Justice Department press release. At any point in time, the president has the power to remove a member without cause.

Under the settlement agreement, the Anti-Weaponization Fund will evaluate claims by looking at the “totality of the circumstances.” Those factors considered include how strong a person’s claim is and what evidence supports it, the financial harm they allegedly suffered — including legal fees — whether they spent time in prison and whether they have already received compensation or other relief elsewhere.

The agreement also gives the board discretion to weigh “other factors” it considers fair and appropriate when deciding whether someone qualifies for compensation.

“This is about seeking accountability for all Americans who were victims of law fare and weaponization: millions of Americans whose online speech was censored at the behest of the government, parents silenced at school boards, Senators whose records were secretly subpoenaed, churchgoers targeted by the FBI, and so on,” a Justice Department document stated.

The Anti-Weaponization Fund will last until December 1, 2028.

APOLOGIES AND CASH HEADED TO ALLEGED ‘WEAPONIZATION’ VICTIMS IN BILLION-DOLLAR TRUMP SETTLEMENT

“It would be a disgrace if the Supreme Court of the United States allows that to happen. Remember what I said 20 to 25% of the people coming into our country will come in through birthright citizenship,” said Trump.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Funding for the Anti-Weaponization Fund is coming from the Judgment Fund, which is a permanent Treasury account used to pay for settlements and claims against the government.

While the Justice Department pointed to the Obama administration’s creation of “Keepseagle,” a $760 million fund for victims of racism by the federal government as precedent for the creation of the fund, legal experts say there are key distinctions between the two. For instance, payouts in Keepseagle were made out to people a part of a class action lawsuit against the government; whereas anyone can apply for a claim with the Anti-Weaponization Fund.

“The Judgment Fund is for lawsuits,” Adam Zimmerman, a professor at USC Gould School of Law told PBS News. “It’s not for an amorphous group of people who feel like they’ve been wronged generally by a prior administration.”

But unlike the Keepseagle, which distributed leftover funds to nonprofits, the Anti-Weaponization Fund will return remaining funds back to the Department of Commerce. Although, the practice of disbursing leftover funds to related third party organizations, which occurred in Keepseagle, is not uncommon in class action lawsuits.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller and Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Elaine Mallon is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business covering national politics.

Zelenskyy confirmed asking for “ammunition, not a ride.” Four years ago, I got pushback for reporting that.

2026-05-21T16:50:00-0400 / CBS News

Washington — Back in February, just after American forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and days before the United States would kick off its war with Iran, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed for the first time that he had uttered perhaps the best-known line attributed to him about the war against Russia: “I need ammunition — not a ride.”

In a speech marking four years since the full-scale Russian invasion had begun, the embattled president recounted that as Russian forces were closing in, the U.S. offered to evacuate him. That line was his response. Zelenskyy told Ukrainians he had said it “not because we are all fearless or made of steel…but [that] on some invisible level, all of us know that we have no other Ukraine, that this is our home.”

Today, the war has settled into a grinding conflict of attrition defined by drone warfare, long-range missile strikes, World War I-esque entrenched fighting positions, high casualty counts and mounting economic pressure on both sides. No long-term peace settlement appears close. But the war has also defied some early predictions that an outmanned Ukrainian military would suffer a swift defeat.

In late February 2022, Zelenskyy’s historic line became one of the most frequently quoted remarks about the invasion — despite the fact that after I reported it, the Biden administration firmly denied Zelenskyy had ever made the comment.

Still, the quote, which showed Zelenskyy’s resolve and dashed any hope Vladimir Putin may have harbored for a quick takeover of Ukraine, became a war cry, appearing on t-shirts and posters and in countless social media posts.

Zelenskyy’s defiance starkly differed from what had occurred months earlier, when a different president — Ashraf Ghani — fled Afghanistan as the Taliban rapidly swept up swaths of territory in the summer of 2021. And only six years earlier, Ukraine had seen another president, Viktor Yanukovych, flee Ukraine for Russia, amid massive protests about government corruption.

Despite the virality of the quote, what I remember most is an angry Biden administration and even a call from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, pushing back on the reporting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the Bucharest B9 summit, held at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace in Romania, on May 13, 2026. Vadim Ghirda / AP

At the time, I was working at the Associated Press, covering national security issues on the investigations team. After learning of the evacuation offer and quote, I notified my editor, Ron Nixon, who, like me, is a Marine veteran. The AP’s top editors met to discuss whether the story could be published on the single source that I had.

Among them was Julie Pace, the AP’s former Washington bureau chief who had been appointed executive editor five months earlier. She made the call to publish, since the source was a senior U.S. intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation.

The story went live late that night, a Friday, at 11:04 p.m. The world now knew that the Biden administration had offered to evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv as invading Russian forces closed in on Ukraine’s capital following a savage fusillade of airstrikes on cities and military bases around Ukraine.

Zelenskyy’s reply: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation.

The story and the quote instantly went viral. President Joe Biden instructed the U.S. State Department to release up to an additional $350 million worth of weapons from U.S. stocks to Ukraine, according to Reuters.

In Franklin Foer’s 2023 book, “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future,” Foer wrote about the Associated Press report quoting Zelenskyy’s refusal to evacuate Kyiv. He compared it to “a line that screenwriters might conjure as they imagine their next blockbuster, and according to the administration it was apocryphia.”

He added, “Jake Sullivan’s advisors considered asking for a correction, but never bothered. A good story that came at their expense was understandable in the circumstances. If anybody deserved a little slack, it was Volodymyr Zelensky.”

He was wrong about that. Biden administration officials did want a correction — and a retraction, if they could get it.

As Friday night rolled into early Saturday, Anna Johnson, the AP’s new Washington bureau chief, received an angry call from a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. As is the case whenever a news outlet receives pushback, I begin re-checking my facts as I knew them. The story and the quote were verbatim accurate in the English translation — in Ukrainian, it’s “I need a weapon, not a taxi.”

I stayed up all night. The Washington Post fact-checked the quote in March 2022 and reported that Biden administration officials expressed confusion about the claim and denied Zelenskyy was asked to leave Kyiv by the U.S. government.

The Post quoted me: “I can understand why they have been denying it. It makes them look bad.”

The Post noted that many news outlets typically would not cite a single-source secondhand quote by another news organization. But at 4:37 a.m. Saturday, hours after the AP’s story was posted, the Ukrainian Embassy in Britain tweeted the quote, giving a source to other news publications.

Multiple news outlets started to report the quote by morning on the East Coast. I remember what The New York Times wrote: “Mr. Zelensky’s response…will most likely go down in Ukrainian history whether he survives this onslaught or not.”

By 9 a.m., we were on another call with a spokesperson from the National Security Council. Angry about Zelenskyy’s quote and another story Nomaan Merchant, our intelligence reporter, was working on — a report about a delay in the intelligence the United States was sharing with Ukraine.

I soon received a call to ask if Sullivan could call me. I was stunned to hear that a top Biden adviser would want to talk to me, but agreed. When Sullivan called, I was at home unclogging my toilet with a plunger. He pushed back on the reporting and urged that I recheck my facts.

I did. The facts did not change. After the call, I spoke to my editor who wanted me to let my source know how much pushback the Associated Press was receiving from the White House. I went back and checked my reporting again. No change.

Sullivan told CBS News earlier this year he had nothing further to add.

I sent an email to the National Security Council spokesperson at 1:50 p.m.

“I spoke to Jake and he wanted me to give him a call back after I had gone back to double check my facts. I called but there was no answer,” I wrote. “The facts as we understand them have not changed but the one thing I don’t quite understand is why the NSC is so upset over this quote when it seems like the NSC has bigger issues to worry about? Thank you for your help and any clarification you can provide for the record.”

In March 2022, The Washington Post’s fact checker published an analysis on whether the quote was real and concluded that it was not easy to confirm. The AP neither corrected nor retracted the story.

Contacted for this story, the AP said they stand by it — me too. A spokesperson for Zelenskyy did as well.

U.S. intelligence agencies were reviewing what they got wrong on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by June 2022. While the U.S. intelligence community accurately predicted Russian President Vladimir Putin would order an invasion, it underestimated Zelenskyy’s resolve.

In December 2022, the AP reported that Zelenskyy’s quip denying to be evacuated from Kyiv was the top notable quote for 2022, according to a Yale Law School librarian’s list of the most notable quotations.

伊朗媒体：伊美在巴基斯坦调解下继续对话

2026年5月22日 07:08 / 联合早报

德黑兰一座建筑物外墙贴上绘有伊朗已故最高领袖哈梅内伊画像的宣传海报。 （路透社）

伊朗学生通讯社星期五（5月22日）凌晨报道，在巴基斯坦方面调解下，伊朗与美国之间的消息和文本交换仍在继续，目标是达成协议框架。

新华社引述伊朗学生通讯社报道，巴基斯坦方面消息人士说，若伊美双方达成预期框架，巴基斯坦陆军参谋长穆尼尔将到访伊朗。

伊朗学生通讯社21日报道，穆尼尔当天将赴伊朗首都德黑兰磋商，旨在进一步推动伊美谈判。

美国国务卿鲁比奥飞往瑞典出席北约外长会议前，在机场对记者说，美伊谈判出现一些“好迹象”。他说：“确实有一些好迹象，但我不想过于乐观……所以，让我们看看未来几天会发生什么。”

21日油价在剧烈波动的交易中大幅震荡，因为战争解决方案的前景不明朗而走低。美国总统特朗普当天誓言，美国最终将拿到伊朗的高浓缩铀。

在特朗普发表这番讲话前，伊朗两名消息人士透露，伊朗最高领袖穆杰塔巴已下令禁止将浓缩铀库存运往国外。

Republican revolt over Trump ‘weaponization’ fund stalls ICE funding vote

2026-05-21T20:17:01.227Z / Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republicans abandoned plans to vote on a bill to fund U.S. ​immigration enforcement operations on Thursday in a political revolt against one of President Donald Trump’s priorities: a $1.8 billion fund for victims of government “weaponization,” including those ‌convicted of violent crimes during the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

The Senate walked away from a planned vote on a $72 billion bill funding Trump’s massive migrant deportation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, delaying the vote at least until June, when lawmakers return from a one-week Memorial Day holiday recess.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune had sought to focus the legislation narrowly to secure the money intended to fund ​ICE and Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s presidency. But at Trump’s behest, the $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund and another $1 billion for building a White House ballroom became ​sticking points.

“It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean, straightforward, and it got a little bit more complicated ⁠this week,” Thune said, expressing his frustration. “It makes everything way harder than it should be.”

The battle over the partisan ICE funding bill came after a Trump-backed challenger unseated two-term Republican ​Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and the president endorsed a primary challenger over veteran Republican Senator John Cornyn in Texas.

Presidents usually back their party’s incumbents. Republicans said Trump’s opposition to Cassidy ​and Cornyn added to the mood of acrimony surrounding the debate.

“He’s lost some support in the Senate,” said Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, who predicted that Senate Republicans would have to impose curbs on Trump’s fund, which the Justice Department announced as part of a court settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service.

“He’s the plaintiff and the boss of the defendants. So just on the surface, it smells,” he said.

ACTING ATTORNEY ​GENERAL SUMMONED TO CAPITOL HILL

Against that backdrop, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche was summoned to Capitol Hill to face questions from angry senators when he made his case for ​the $1.8 billion fund designed to compensate Trump allies and other victims of government “weaponization.”

During Blanche’s meeting, several senators insisted the money not be used to compensate people convicted of assaulting law enforcement during the ‌Capitol riot, the ⁠person said.

Trump had already pardoned many of those convicted for crimes they committed during that deadly assault.

“I think there are people who are concerned about public relations,” Senator Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, told reporters about the meeting.

Emotions were so raw that a planned White House meeting between Trump, Senate Republicans and House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson was canceled, according to a source familiar with the arrangement.

BIPARTISAN RESISTANCE TO BALLROOM FUNDING

The resistance against Trump became evident late on Wednesday when Senate Republicans said “no” to $1 billion in new security funding for the 90,000-square-foot (8,360-square-meter) ​ballroom Trump wants to build on the ​site of the White House East Wing ⁠that he had razed last October.

For months, Trump has said no taxpayer dollars would be needed for the project. Nonetheless, a $1 billion tab to be picked up by taxpayers stared senators in the face as an add-in to a $72 billion bill for Trump’s migrant deportation program.

Bacon ​said the White House failed to communicate that most of the $1 billion ballroom money would fund needed security upgrades across the ​White House complex. “The ballroom was ⁠rolled out so badly that I’m not sure it can be recovered in the near term,” he said.

Democrats hammered away about a “glitzy,” “gauzy” “vanity project,” a preview of their midterm election pitch addressing voters’ worries about the high prices of food, housing, healthcare and particularly gasoline, which skyrocketed after the February 28 U.S. attack on Iran.

Thune, who started the week with a tense phone call with the ⁠president over ​his endorsement against Cornyn, told reporters after Thursday’s meeting that his party “will pick up where we left off” ​after the holiday recess.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is not running for reelection, did not hold back in criticizing Trump.

“I think it’s stupid on stilts,” Tillis said of the “weaponization” fund in an interview with Spectrum ​News. “The American people are going to reject this out of hand.”

Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan, Bo Erickson, Jacob Bogage and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Rod Nickel and Michael Learmonth

Trump lawyer-turned-critic Michael Cohen says he’s applying for “anti-weaponization fund” claim

May 21, 2026 / 7:41 PM EDT / CBS News

By Jacob Rosen Justice Department Reporter

Michael Cohen, a Trump lawyer-turned-critic who served prison time due to his work for the president, is planning to apply for money from the Justice Department’s new “anti-weaponization fund,” he told CBS News on Thursday.

“I am working through the process on my own and will submit the letter directly to the DOJ once completed,” Cohen told CBS News in a text message.

The controversial $1.776 billion fund was announced earlier this week, offering financial compensation to people who allege the legal system was “weaponized” against them. It’s part of a settlement between President Trump and the Justice Department to resolve a lawsuit brought by the president against the Internal Revenue Service over the leaking of Mr. Trump’s tax returns.

He said he is applying because he believes the issues that prompted Mr. Trump to sue the government are “identical to what had happened to me.”

“The basis for which Trump instituted the $10 billion action are the same causes of action that have affected me as well—has cost me my law license, my businesses, finances, family happiness, business relationships and opportunities,” Cohen said.

Cohen said that he is still working on a draft of his letter seeking relief. In a portion of his draft obtained by CBS News, Cohen wrote: “If the weaponization fund truly exists to support individuals destroyed by politically motivated law enforcement tactics, selective prosecution, government leaks, abuses of power and intentional destruction of reputation then there is perhaps no clearer example than what happened to me.”

NBC News was first to report on Cohen’s plan to apply for the fund.

Cohen was among Mr. Trump’s most trusted legal advisers before he became president in 2016. He was often referred to as Mr. Trump’s personal “fixer,” and once described himself as “the guy who would take a bullet for the president.” He is now a loud Trump critic.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 after he pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations related to payments he arranged to women alleging affairs with Mr. Trump. He was also sentenced to two months in prison for lying to Congress over a proposed Trump Tower Moscow project, a charge brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. At his sentencing, Cohen claimed his loyalty to Mr. Trump led him to “take a path of darkness instead of light.”

“My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, and I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands,” Cohen said at his sentencing.

In 2024, Cohen testified in a New York state criminal case against Mr. Trump, who was later convicted of falsifying business records related to the same payments to women that were at the center of Cohen’s criminal charges. Mr. Trump has long denied having affairs with the women and denied any criminal wrongdoing.

Cohen testified at trial that the president received regular updates on efforts to cover up salacious stories about him when he ran for president in 2016 and personally signed off on a scheme to falsify records related to them.

This would not be the first time that Cohen has sought relief for what he views as mistreatment by the government. Five years ago, he sued the federal government and Mr. Trump, alleging he was abruptly taken out of a COVID-era home confinement program in 2020 and forced to return to prison in an act of retaliation due to his criticism of the president. A judge dismissed his lawsuit, citing prior court precedents.

Cohen is among the first known Trump critics to signal plans to apply for the “anti-weaponization fund.”

The Justice Department said in a statement Monday that “there are no partisan requirements to file a claim,” and decisions on who will get relief will be determined by a panel of five people appointed by the attorney general.

Many of the other figures who have taken an interest in applying are Trump allies, including former Trump adviser Michael Caputo, who became the first known applicant when he asked the Justice Department for $2.7 million on Tuesday. Some Jan. 6 riot defendants have also suggested they may apply.

The fund has drawn criticism from members of both parties and from ethics watchdogs. The progressive Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called it “the most brazen act of self-dealing in the history of the presidency.”

The Justice Department has defended the fund, with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche comparing it to other settlement funds created by the government and arguing it would remedy “years and years of weaponization.”

Lawmakers react to “anti-weaponization fund”

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/republican-lawmakers-seek-clarity-trumps-anti-weaponization-fund/

Republican lawmakers seek clarity on Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund”

(04:31)

Trump ups Reflecting Pool renovation projections to ‘less than $20 million’ amid court fight

2026-05-21T20:48:17.042Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/reflecting-pool-20-million-lawsuit

President Donald Trump said Thursday the price tag for his Reflecting Pool renovations in Washington, DC, will be “less than $20 million” after he decided the exterior needed more work.

“I originally thought I’d do it for $2 or $3 million,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Just do a base. But now we are fixing up the exterior of it so we will probably be in it for less than $20 million.”

Trump’s comments came as a federal judge heard arguments by a nonprofit suing to stop the project in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The judge did not immediately rule on the motion.

Trump said the exterior work was not included in his original numbers.

“When I went there last week, I saw the exterior was in very bad shape, as well as the interior, so I said, ‘We’re going to fix that too,’” he said.

“The key is to have it done before July 4,” Trump said, adding that the project is “probably at three quarters done.”

The president had initially said the renovation would cost $1.8 million. But federal records show the price tag is already up to $13.1 million for the project, CNN reported.

Trump on Thursday touted the economic efficiency of his renovations, repeatedly pointing to previous repair estimates of $350 million that he said would’ve taken longer.

“It was going to take four years, $350 million. I’ll be doing it in basically a couple of months for less than $20 million dollars.”

The project has been a priority for the president, who has repeatedly disparaged the state of the Reflecting Pool, saying it is feces-infested and in disrepair. He has zeroed in on the color, which he claims no one likes. And he contends that previous administrations failed to repair leaks and other problems.

The color has been a particularly thorny issue in Washington. Historians, including the foundation suing to stop the renovations, say Trump’s choice of a dark blue that he calls “American Flag Blue” will make the site look more like a swimming pool.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Washington, DC, appeared torn on Thursday over what to do with a request from a non-profit for an order halting work on the Reflecting Pool while their legal challenge to the project plays out.

US District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, asked tough questions to attorneys representing the Cultural Landscape Foundation about how the ongoing work amounted to an irreparable injury that warranted his intervention now. Courts are typically reluctant to issue injunctions like the ones sought by the group unless they can be persuaded that a challenged action cannot later be undone.

“It seems to me that if there is any harm to be done it is both reparable and temporary,” Nichols said during a hearing.

The judge, who did not rule form the bench, pushed a Justice Department attorney to concede that while it’s not possible to remove the paint, it could be painted over in a way that brings the color back closer to how it was before work began this year.

That reality appeared to ease concerns from Nichols that if he didn’t intervene now, but later decided that the government violated federal law in how it carried out the project, his ruling would still have an impact on the ground.

https://www.cnn.com/

“Putting the pool back entirely to the way plaintiffs want — we can do that now and later,” the judge said.

The case, which was brought earlier this month, is the latest challenge to Trump’s effort to remake a slew of cultural and historic institutions and sites in the nation’s capital. Other groups have asked federal courts to stop the president from moving ahead with work on a massive new ballroom at the White House, construction of an arch similar to Paris’ Arc de Triomphe and the painting of a historic federal office building adjacent to the White House.

In the Reflecting Pool case, the plaintiffs contend the project violates federal laws requiring the Interior Department to complete a consultation process that includes notifying the public of the plans and getting input from other federal agencies before beginning the work.

“The new coloration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year,” lawyers for the group wrote in their lawsuit.

The group also says the project runs afoul of a federal law requiring the department to issue an assessment of how the paint job would impact the environment.

“As we speak, the government is defacing a historic treasure,” Alexander Kristofcak, an attorney for the challengers, told Nichols on Thursday.

The Justice Department, however, said both on Thursday and in court papers filed ahead of the hearing that no federal laws were violated because a determination was made to exclude the project in full from an environmental assessment.

As for the winding review process ordinarily required to be undertaken per the National Historic Preservation Act, they said the project underwent a “streamlined review” that can sometimes take place when officials decide work on a site amounts to “routine maintenance.”