The following is a lightly edited transcript of the August 3 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Late Sunday, Todd Blanche finally confirmed in writing that the slush fund is officially dead.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Donald Trump just unleashed two angry, explosive rants at members of his own party, and they were really revealing. It’s clear that Trump is extremely sensitive to perceptions that he’s losing control over the GOP, because he fears it makes him look weak.
And in response to all this, one GOP senator dropped a bomb, making a surprising revelation.
So here’s a big question: Can Democrats be doing more to exploit these schisms, and more to inflict pain on the GOP over Trump’s cratering public standing?
New Republic staff writer Emma Janssen has a new piece reporting on how that might happen. She’s the author of TNR’s new newsletter on D.C. politics, The Blue Book, which you should subscribe to right away. Emma, good to have you on.
Emma Janssen: Hi, Greg. Thank you so much for having me. I am a big fan of the podcast, and I’m glad I’m here.
Sargent: Thanks so much. OK, so Trump is in a fury with Senator John Cornyn and several others who are holding up Todd Blanche’s nomination to officially become attorney general.
The sticking point is that Blanche created this billion-dollar fund as a settlement of Trump’s corrupt fake lawsuit against the IRS, which is supposed to give money to supposed victims of government weaponization and gives Trump and his family tax immunity. These senators want this thing dead for good. Emma, can you just explain this situation and why it’s so important?
Janssen: Senator John Cornyn, as well as Senator Thom Tillis, are two crucial votes for pushing forward Todd Blanche as the nominee for attorney general. And they’ve been so far holding out and saying that they won’t vote for Todd Blanche because of this anti-weaponization fund, like you mentioned.
The idea behind this fund is very corrupt. It’s to provide financial benefit to January Sixers. And these two Republican senators have drawn a red line and say that unless they have it in writing that this fund will not move forward and that it’s dead, they cannot vote for Todd Blanche.
Sargent: I mean, this thing is a slush fund, right, Emma? All it is is just this huge pile of money that Trump can just hand out to his insurrectionist supporters and to other supporters if he wants. The way it was configured was extraordinarily corrupt. It gave him lots of backdoor control over it. And then the tax shield is even worse. And so these senators are actually taking something of a principled stand here, right?
Janssen: They definitely are, kind of shockingly. There are other things about Blanche that they have overlooked and say that his actions, for example, on the Epstein files have not been great, but they’re willing to sort of overlook that. This slush fund, however, is not something that they will let happen and vote for Blanche.
Sargent: So Trump unleashed this wild tirade on Truth Social targeting Cornyn. Trump absurdly claimed that this fund is necessary to reward all the January Sixers, who he painted as victims and martyrs. Then Trump tore into Cornyn and gloated over his endorsement of Ken Paxton, who defeated Cornyn in the Texas GOP primary.
Trump said this: “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide presidential win, so did John Cornyn until he lost his election to an opponent that I endorsed. Todd Blanche, a good man, should be immediately approved as U.S. Attorney General.”
It was an epic screed, and I think what Trump meant is that millions of people agree that all this money should be handed to January Sixers. But of course, there’s no way that’s true. Emma, what did you make of all that?
Janssen: I think it’s the latest example of how Trump really uses primary elections as a way to force Republicans to comply with his agenda. As he mentioned in that Truth Social post, he endorsed Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, and Cornyn is now leaving the Senate.
Of course, that has sort of backfired on him in this situation, now that Cornyn seems to be standing up and asserting a little more independence from Trump’s agenda. But Trump has really been able to force Republicans into compliance with even these ridiculously unpopular policies, slush funds, et cetera, because of how he engages with the primaries.
Sargent: And now we’re really seeing some shifting here, where Republicans are getting less reluctant to go along with him. You did this piece for The Blue Book, which is The New Republic’s new newsletter—folks, subscribe to this, please—that stepped back and looked at what these tensions really mean. As you detailed in the piece, it’s very clear that Republicans are now at odds with Trump in a new way. There’s the anger over the IRS fund, which Republicans are holding up Blanche over. And the holdup of Blanche is itself a pretty big deal, as evidenced by Trump exploding in such rage.
Then there’s the war powers vote. Three Republicans just joined Dems to curb Trump’s war in Iran—Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul. That failed, but still it’s very clear Republicans are now at odds with him over the war, not least because the GOP base is splitting over it and a lot of MAGA influencers have gone their own way. Can you talk about these splits?
Janssen: With respect to the war powers resolution, this is the thirteenth time that Democrats have tried to get senators on the record about their support for the Iran war. And it has actually passed once before. Like you mentioned, it didn’t pass this time, but it feels like they’re increasingly getting more and more Republican defectors to come over and vote against the war.
When I spoke to some Democratic senators, what they really seem to be focused on are the midterms in November. Because as a minority party, there’s little that they can actually do to advance their agenda, to advance partisan legislation. But they’re hoping that by forcing Republicans to vote for an expensive and unpopular war, they can then weaponize that into electoral victory in November and actual change in the next Congress.
Sargent: Well, your piece for The Blue Book points out that Republicans really need distance on the war in particular from Trump, but Trump doesn’t want to let them. And the key here is that that’s unusual. Presidents tend to understand the needs of their own party when they’re holding their party back in a midterm, the way Trump is now. You quoted a political scientist, Seth Masket, who’s very good, saying, “He’s proven that he can end careers.”
I think the essence of this here is Trump can’t let Republicans get distanced from him, in part because it would require admitting that he’s unpopular and that his war is failing. And he can’t do that. Can you talk about your reporting on that?
Janssen: This is a deeply unpopular war. It continues to get more and more unpopular. It is incredibly expensive for average consumers when we’re talking about, obviously, gas. Farmers might be feeling it from fertilizer prices. People who play video games could feel it when the price of their regular everyday electronics go up. And there’s also kind of a humanitarian element. People don’t want to see U.S. soldiers dying in the war. They don’t want to see Iranians dying in the war, etc. But yeah, Trump has this grip on the party and cannot come to terms with the fact that he’s gotten the country into an unpopular war and forced his party to back it.
I think that there are some obvious places where we see splits here. This is over on the House side, not the Senate side, but Thomas Massie from Kentucky lost his election. This was a big uproar. When he was running for reelection—he has been a strong opponent of this war, and he’s also been against Trump on other issues, such as the Epstein files—and Trump endorsed against him. And a lot of money, including from AIPAC, was poured in to get his opponent elected, and Massie lost his election.
So this is happening in the House, this is happening in the Senate. And Trump has shown that he can get his way by just blunt-force endorsing an opponent in a Republican primary and making sure that money gets funneled into that election. And I think we’re going to keep seeing that. But on the flip side, like we’re seeing with Cornyn and Tillis to some extent, we’re also seeing a bit more independence now that they’ve lost their primaries.
Sargent: Yeah, and we should note that Trump has really gloated like crazy over ousting Thomas Massie in a really disgusting way. Trump exploded in another rant, this time at a Republican state Senate leader named Rodric Bray. Trump is still angry because Indiana refused to obey his command that they redraw congressional districts, and Trump backed primaries against all the Republicans who bucked him.
Trump gloated here again about ousting Bray, and he said this: “Rodric Bray should be ashamed of himself for costing our country, mainly the Republican Party, two U.S. House seats.” Trump went on to rip Bray as a “FOOL” in capital letters and thanked Indiana GOP voters for their loyalty in ousting Bray, meaning their loyalty to Trump.
Emma, I think this is really telling, because, you know, this whole thing with Indiana happened a good while ago already, yet Trump is bringing it up now because he’s so desperate to remind Republicans that he can oust them in primaries—precisely because he’s losing control over them now. Your thoughts on that?
Janssen: Yeah, exactly. It’s also notable that we’re getting to the end of primary season. So this major source of power for him to enforce his agenda and elect the people that he wants elected, or make sure that the people he doesn’t like don’t get elected—that might actually be the more important part. That tool for him is disappearing now that the primaries are coming to a close.
And so I think it’s exactly what you said. It’s a grip on power. And we might start seeing more resistance from his own party. I mean, I wouldn’t put a ton of money on that, but he’s losing this tool. And that could open up a space for more Republicans to jump ship on a war powers resolution, for example.
Sargent: Absolutely. I think there’s a bit of a split screen here that’s worth commenting on for a sec. On the one hand, he really does wield this iron control over Republican primary voters. His record is not a hundred percent perfect, but it’s pretty damn good when it comes to ousting whoever he wants, with whoever comes along and says, Mr. Trump, I’ll run a primary for you.
He’s just able to get Republican voters to stampede away from their own representative or senator and go back whoever Trump says they should vote for instead. So, you know, I don’t know how well that reflects on these Republican voters—not very well—but it surely shows that Trump does wield some real power over them.
But then on the other hand, he doesn’t have that kind of control over Republican legislators, senators, and even in some cases representatives. And that drives him absolutely crazy. And he can’t stand that. So he won’t let them get distance from him in order to position themselves for the midterms, which they absolutely desperately have to do. I really wonder whether Trump in his head doesn’t understand that the midterm electorate is a different thing than the Republican primary electorate. You know what I mean?
Janssen: Yeah, that is a very good point, because Trump is incredibly unpopular. And now that we’re shifting from primaries to general elections, the entire game has changed.
Sargent: You were talking to a bunch of Democrats about whether there are openings to drive these wedges and schisms a little deeper. What’s your sense of that? Is there a way to do that? And what are Democrats saying to you about it?
Janssen: When I talked to Professor Masket, he made the point that even if Democrats were able to advance a great piece of legislation on whatever—you name it—Trump would just veto it. So there’s not actually much that they can do concretely and materially right now, except just trying to push this messaging game. Trying to force Republicans to get on the record, to take a side, to split with Trump. And then hopefully we’ll see the results of that in November.
That’s kind of what I heard over and over again: we’re going to make them defend their positions on the war, we’re going to make them defend the high cost of gas. And if they can’t do it, they’re going to lose their seats.
Sargent: And it seems like Democrats have been somewhat effective at forcing Republicans to take votes that they don’t want to take. What’s your sense of that? Do you think they have been?
Janssen: Yeah, I think Democrats have been successful, particularly on the issue of the war, at getting Republicans on the record again and again and again. There was a long stretch there when they just kept bringing war powers votes to the table. This is in both chambers—the House was doing this, the Senate was doing this. And the point of it was to just get those nay votes from Republicans and be able to point to them later during midterm season, for example, and say, hey, are you upset that your gas is expensive? Well, look what your representative voted for.
Sargent: Senator Thom Tillis, who, as you mentioned, is one of the voices trying to kill this thing, really dropped a bomb on Twitter in response to Donald Trump’s crazy screeds today. Tillis said: “The president made it clear today that the so-called anti-weaponization fund is still alive, which is exactly why we are attempting to formally end it.” That’s pretty harsh language. Tillis is saying here, you just revealed, Mr. President, that you’re a corrupt shit, and we’re not going to let you get away with it, basically.
And then there’s another line in here where Tillis says that he’s been working with Blanche to end the anti-weaponization fund and praises Blanche’s work on that. But then Tillis adds this: “It’s a shame his confirmation has hit a snag only because an incompetent personal advisor to the president refuses to amend the bogus settlement.”
Emma, I mean, that’s really harsh stuff. I think what Tillis is saying here is he’s letting the world know that there’s somebody inside the White House who’s corruptly and in great depravity trying to keep this thing alive against the will of everybody else, right?
Janssen: Yeah, that’s how I’m reading it. And I think, importantly, he is definitely leaving open a path for Blanche. He’s not scorching that earth at all. Like you read, he calls Blanche forthright, thoughtful, patient. So I agree—it seems that he is putting blame squarely on someone else, who we don’t know who it is. And he’s kind of framing it as though Blanche is trying to make it work.
Trump himself doesn’t seem to want to make it work. He is not certainly being forthright, thoughtful, and patient about this. He has continued throughout the week to say that he wants the fund, even if he is sort of acknowledging that it’s likely dead. So yeah, I wonder who this incompetent personal advisor is. Trump himself doesn’t seem to want to amend the agreement, but it seems like this is a scapegoat situation.
Sargent: Yeah. And I think Tillis is sending up a flare to the media saying, look into this, people. There’s somebody in there who’s really acting in an extraordinarily corrupt way, trying to prevent us from ending this thing. And that person is who you should be focused on.
Janssen: Mm-hmm. I agree. That is definitely what it seems like he’s trying to do.
Sargent: OK, to close this out, let’s talk about what’s really at stake here, I think. Glenn Thrush of The New York Times had a really good point. Basically, what he said is that the battle is far bigger than about Blanche. What’s actually happening here is that Republicans are, for the first serious time, revolting against something much bigger, which is Trump’s effort to turn DOJ into an extension of his own will, into a corrupt instrument of presidential will, into his own personal team of lawyers who’ll extract pain and revenge on whoever he directs them to go after.
And so I think if Republicans actually do hold the line here and force an end to this fund, then something important will have been achieved. I don’t want to get too optimistic about Republicans doing that, but I really do think that if they can kill the fund, it lets Trump know that there are limits to just how much he can corrupt DOJ. What do you think of that?
Janssen: I completely agree. I think that there’s a couple of messages that could come out of this, if the line is held by Tillis and Cornyn. Like you said, there’s the message that you can’t actually go this far with the DOJ. Of course, they’re letting some things slide that Democrats certainly wouldn’t. Blanche has been a big part of the effort to conceal the Epstein files, and he spoke with Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, right?
There’s a lot that I think is still concerning about Blanche that isn’t related to this slush fund. But it sends that exact message that you mentioned. It also sends the message that Republicans can stand up against Trump and potentially win. Maybe not win their elections, but they can win some public favor and also accomplish the goals that they’re hoping to accomplish.
Sargent: Emma Janssen, well said. Folks, make sure to check out Emma’s new newsletter. It’s TNR’s new newsletter on what’s going on inside Washington. It’s good stuff. You need to subscribe. It’s called The Blue Book. Please subscribe, folks. Emma, really nice to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on.
Janssen: Thank you, Greg. I really appreciate you having me, and this was a great conversation.