Two GOP senators are withholding support for Blanche over concerns about the settlement, which provided Trump with tax audit immunity and created an “anti-weaponization” fund.
Trump floated temporarily withdrawing Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general and renominating him after two GOP senators leave office.
His comments come as Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have expressed hesitancy to vote to advance Blanche’s nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Cornyn countered Trump in a post to X, suggesting that more Republicans senators were also concerned about Blanche.
“POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis,” the Texas senator write.
Trump said in his post that Blanche is a “STAR” who “has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time.”
Cornyn and Tillis are concerned over aspects of Trump’s settlement with the IRS for the leak of his tax returns.
As part of the settlement, the Justice Department established a so-called $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund and afforded Trump, his family members and companies protections from IRS audits.
The DOJ has since backed off of the “anti-weaponization” fund, but Cornyn and Tillis want written guarantees that it won’t be brought back. They also want the audit provision of the settlement to be narrowed.
In his Truth Social post, Trump noted how he did not endorse either candidate, arguing that their “political careers have been ended by my action.”
Cornyn was defeated in his GOP primary by Ken Paxton, who was endorsed by Trump. Tillis decided not to seek re-election.
A Senate committee today advanced Dr. Erica Schwartz’s nomination to be director of the nation’s top public health agency, setting aside concerns that she will not stand up to political meddling.
If confirmed by the full Senate, the 54-year-old would become the 22nd director of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is charged with protecting Americans from preventable health threats. Her resume includes medical and law degrees, a stint as deputy surgeon general, and a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard.
Schwartz appeared to be on shaky ground after a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee this month. The chairman, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and others questioned whether she would be willing to stand up to Republican President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., if he ordered CDC to do something that was unsupported by science and good public health practice.
But when the committee met last week, Cassidy said he had spoken with Schwartz after that hearing and to others who knew her.
“I’m confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not,” said Cassidy, whose support was necessary for the nomination to go forward.
The committee’s near party-line vote today moved Schwartz’s nomination ahead. Among those who opposed her was Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent.
“The issue at hand is not complicated,” Sanders said last week. “Will we have people in the Trump administration who have the guts to stand up to people who are anti-science and into conspiracy theories?”
The United States launched major strikes against Iran this morning after Trump vowed to hit the regime “very hard” as retaliation for a surprise attack on American forces in the region earlier in the week. It comes as a new poll shows 72% of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of Iran. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for “Today.”
Senate Democrats are calling on the Trump administration to restore funding for hundreds of energy projects that were canceled “based solely” on political grounds, calling the terminations “an attempt to punish perceived political enemies.”
In a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Office of Management and Budget Director Director Russell Vought, Sens. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., were joined by 37 Democratic-caucusing senators in demanding that 223 energy grants be restored.
“Once an administration begins punishing Americans for how they vote, the threat extends far beyond these projects: no state, community, business, or worker can trust that the federal government will apply the law fairly,” the letter said.
The grants, canceled in October, were terminated because they were connected to states that did not vote for Trump in 2024 and had two Democratic-caucusing senators, according to a court filing from a Trump administration official this month.
The letter from Democrats called the cancellations “an attack on the rule of law and the basic democratic principle that the federal government serves the entire country — not merely those who support the President.”
“At a time when energy prices are skyrocketing, the administration is hell-bent on political retribution instead of working to bring down costs for millions of Americans,” the letter said. “For the good of our country, the rule of law, and the American people, we demand that you change course and restore the previously awarded funding.”
In the filing this month, an Energy Department official stated that the canceled grants were selected “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” and not because of other factors, like cost reductions.
The Energy Department said in a statement last week that the filing did not show that cancellations were made with a political bias, arguing that it was “misrepresentation of the court filing” to say so.
Trump is expected to launch an effort his afternoon to open pathways for military veterans to become commercial truck drivers.
The initiative, dubbed “Freedom Haulers,” was confirmed by White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.
“President Trump has made our highways safer by taking illegal alien, non-English-speaking truck drivers off the road,” she said in a statement. “Now, he is expanding pathways for our veterans to obtain commercial drivers licenses and access quality, high-paying trucking jobs!”
In a post to X, Kelly shared a Fox News story detailing the plans, which said the Transportation Department will expand the eligibility of veterans to obtain expedited commercial driver’s licenses and will double the waiver period that allows veterans with driving experience in the military to skip a skills test to two years after active-duty service. Commercial driver’s license training will also be offered for veterans who did not drive heavy vehicles during their military service, Fox News reported.
Trump signed an executive order last year aimed at taking commercial truck drivers who aren’t proficient in English off the road. The AP reported earlier this month that the Trump administration wants veterans to fill vacancies left by drivers who could not pass the requirements.
Cornyn has offered a counterproposal to the Justice Department on his request that it put a revised settlement agreement between Trump and the government into writing before he will vote in committee to send Blanche’s nomination for attorney general to the full Senate.
Yesterday, Cornyn said he’s looking for “written proposals to modify the release that was signed in the tax dispute with President Trump and his and his organization.” A Justice Department official says it has transmitted new language to Cornyn and Tillis.
The push by Cornyn and Tillis, who is also on the Senate Judiciary Committee, resulted in the committee postponing the vote on Blanche’s nomination, which had been scheduled for this morning. A new date for the vote has not yet been set.
The American Dream may not be dead for many Black Americans, but it is further away than at any point since the Civil Rights Movement, warns a report by the National Urban League.
Released today, the annual “State of Black America” report grimly describes Black Americans’ economic and political prospects as having worsened due to policy changes from Trump’s administration, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.
Read the full story here.
A state that aggressively promotes itself as “Pure Michigan” is playing host next week to a collision course of purity tests in a hostile Democratic Senate primary.
Read the full story here.
At a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to answer repeated questions about his handling of the Covid pandemic, invoking the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. Now, Republicans are threatening to hold him in contempt of Congress. NBC’s Monica Alba reports for “TODAY.”
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, say the Defense Department should perform its first successful full-agency audit, as required by federal law, or face financial penalties.
Read the full story here.
Iran vowed to “punish” the United States today after the American military said it had completed a “heavy wave of strikes” overnight, the latest retaliation for an attack by Tehran on U.S. forces in the Middle East.
The renewed fighting shattered a brief period of calm that had seen the two sides engage with a push to revive diplomatic efforts and stave off dramatic new escalation.
Read the full story here.
The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed its vote on whether to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general after two Republican senators said they did not receive written assurances they were seeking from the Justice Department surrounding a settlement between Trump and the IRS.
The GOP-led committee was scheduled to vote this morning on sending Blanche’s nomination to the full Senate, but Cornyn and Tillis, both of whom have clashed with Trump and neither of whom faces re-election in November, have complicated Blanche’s path to confirmation with their demands from the Justice Department.
Read the full story here.
NBC News