Republicans Kill Attempt to Stop Trump’s Corrupt IRS Immunity Deal

Republicans apparently have no problem with President Trump protecting himself and his family from any tax investigations ever again. 

On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee voted down an amendment to a tax procedure bill that would have prevented the IRS from making any tax audit immunity deals with a sitting president, their family, or any connected entities. It also would have effectively killed Trump’s IRS audit immunity deal and required the Treasury Department to report any related agreements to Congress. 

Every Republican on the committee voted against the amendment, including Senators Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn, who will be leaving the Senate at the end of this year after being defeated in GOP primaries by Trump-backed challengers. 

Cornyn and Cassidy have vocally opposed Trump’s settlement deal with the IRS, which not only would give the president, his family, and his businesses protection from audits from the IRS, but also calls for the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion slush fund for anyone who claims to have been victimized by “political weaponization” from the federal government. Cornyn in particular has vowed to vote against Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general until he gets a written agreement that the slush fund is dead and the IRS audit immunity deal is narrowed in scope (so as not to apply to future filings).  

But their opposition to the settlement seems to end at actually taking any legislative action against it. 

The amendment vote was forced by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member on the committee, and was supported by every Democrat on the committee. The amendment failed by a 14–13 vote.  

“Our office has received more than 7000 messages from constituents expressing their opposition and anger,” Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell told Bloomberg Law. “We need to make clear to those law-abiding citizens that the well-connected are not above the law and they don’t get a free pass when it comes to compliance with our tax laws.”

Other Republicans on the committee claimed that approving the amendment would have doomed the bipartisan bill altogether. It’s a package of changes to tax procedures, including collections, processes, and administration. Republican Senator Mike Crapo, the committee’s chair, said “this is not the place” to resolve the settlement. 

“If this bill were to become the vehicle where this issue is resolved, it would achieve basically making this bill a partisan bill,” and that “would turn this bill into a bill that has a much dimmer future for becoming law,” Crapo said. He and his fellow Republicans haven’t offered any other solutions to Trump’s unprecedented and outrageous IRS settlement, though. 

Elon Musk is planning to revive his shady America PAC to help out President Donald Trump’s party in the midterm elections.

Despite the billionaire technocrat’s pledge last year to stay out of politics, his America PAC is planning to direct its efforts toward door-knocking, direct mail, and digital advertising, sources told Axios Wednesday.

“America PAC was an essential partner for our historic GOTV operation in 2024, and their return for 2026 is a huge boost for Republicans across the country,” James Blair, Trump’s senior political advisor told Axios.

“We will again outsmart our opponents and ruthlessly execute our mission for the GOP between now and Election Day,” he added.

The news of Musk’s return to politics came alongside reports that his company SpaceX had landed a $1.6 billion military contract.

It’s not clear how much Musk plans to spend, but given the $288 million he personally poured into Trump’s reelection effort, the number is expected to be high.

America PAC has a history of using shady means to drum up the conservative vote.

During the 2024 presidential election, America PAC launched a series of digital ads using the image of Trump’s assassination to invite people browsing Google to “register to vote.” In key battleground states, users were directed to a very different page, prompting them to enter their phone number, address, and age. Once complete, users were then greeted by a “Thank You” page, with no actual link to voter registration in sight.

The information collected from user responses to this ad campaign informed the PAC’s canvassing efforts in those states. So, in effect, collecting private data that went right back to the Trump campaign.

Musk also waded into murky legal waters with his direct mail scheme. In Georgia, residents received partially pre-filled absentee ballot applications from Musk’s America PAC, in violation of state law. Members of the Georgia State Elections Board voted to issue a formal letter of reprimand to Musk’s America PAC—but it seems that nothing happened after that.

And Musk’s door-to-door efforts weren’t exactly a breeze. Canvassers reported that the app they used was buggy, and some even exploited its technical issues to fake door knocks. Other canvassers said they were tricked and threatened as part of Musk’s get-out-the-vote efforts.

If Musk’s America PAC is really coming out of dormancy, then Americans can expect even more misleading ads, illegal mailers, and chaotic canvassing efforts.

The State Department is having some trouble identifying states.

At the annual International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this week, the U.S. State Department unveiled a map of the African continent with every single country mislabeled. Nigeria drifted into the Sahara Desert, landlocked and lost; Mozambique was relocated to the eastern Horn of Africa; and the Ivory Coast, somehow, found itself nowhere near a coast. The map also included a country with no name, while Cameroon, dutifully included in the list of countries, got no real estate on the map at all.

The map was revealed about halfway through a presentation about the State Department’s new international health agreements. It was supposed to depict opportunities for Annual Program Statements by country in Africa, as part of the implementation process for remaining AIDS prevention programming after President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency dismantled USAID last year. According to an analysis by Reuters, the map contained an artificial intelligence watermark which identified it as made by OpenAI.

Presentation attendees—including high-level officials representing several of the mislabeled countries—took screenshots of the map and posted them online. Photos posted by journalist and AIDS expert Emily Bass were shared across LinkedIn, with one post garnering about 40,000 views, Reuters reports.

“The U.S. government’s failure to catch this error before displaying the slide at the top international AIDS conference in the world, in a session that featured the Director General of Nigeria as an invited guest, is not only disrespectful to African collaborators, it’s also a significant tell,” Bass wrote on Substack. “As this session made clear in so many ways, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy is redrawing the map and rewriting history.”

Matt Petit, who focuses on geopolitics and AI at the Atlantic Council, called the map “beyond embarrassing” in a post on LinkedIn. “Whoever created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work.”

In a statement following the presentation, the State Department claimed “full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners.” It went on to blame a staff member for hastily changing the slide deck before the session began. Despite the embarrassing moment, the department said it remains “committed to fighting AIDS.”

Maybe a map that can’t identify a single African country says more about America’s AIDS diplomacy than a briefing ever could.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently thinks the best use of his time is to co-host a celebrity cooking show.

Kennedy told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview that he’s launching a new cooking series called The Real Food Show Thursday in order to spread the Trump administration’s new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which go all in on meat and dairy.

The show will include celebrity chefs and highlight Kennedy’s favorite fermented foods, including kimchi, yogurt, and sauerkraut. The first episode, available on the Department of Health and Human Services website, features chef Andrew Gruel making “Crispy Salmon Cakes with Apple, White Bean & Green Salad.”

The show comes after Kennedy inverted the food pyramid to prioritize full-fat dairy and protein at every meal, as well as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. He’s pushed beef tallow and butter over seed oils, which he demonizes despite the fact that they are associated with lowering the risks of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Meanwhile, the government is dealing with several food-related crises, from a parasite outbreak on produce that causes explosive diarrhea to a salmonella scare affecting eggs in Texas. The New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, has infested cattle in Texas and spread to other states, causing an estimated $1 billion in damages. Many of the issues with tainted food can be traced back to last year’s decision to slash a federal-state partnership responsible for overseeing food contaminants.

Why is Kennedy directing his attention to making cooking videos instead of managing these real problems? One reason could be that Kennedy has reportedly “checked out” of his job and barely attends meetings, showing up to work at 10 a.m. only to leave around 4 p.m. He seems to care only about overhauling dietary guidelines and pushing an anti-vaccine agenda. The latter has led to a 35-year record high for measles cases in the U.S.

Kennedy should not have his job, but the only heat he’s getting from President Trump is that he’s not going after childhood vaccines hard enough. As long as he remains a Cabinet secretary, Kennedy will be spending his time doing influencer-type stuff instead of safeguarding the health of Americans.

The White House wasn’t ready for the revolt against acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation.

President Donald Trump’s inner circle “seemed surprised” by the Republican pushback to Blanche’s nomination, MS NOW reported Thursday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on whether to advance Blanche’s nomination Thursday morning. But late the night before, the committee postponed the vote, after Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina made clear that they would not support Blanche.

Earlier Wednesday, the president had suggested that Blanche’s confirmation was a sure thing.

“All I can say is Todd Blanche is outstanding, and I thought it was pretty routine because he’s so good,” Trump said. “He just wouldn’t find a better person.”

The two GOP lawmakers have demanded that Blanche put into writing that Trump’s so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is actually dead. Blanche had declared the fund was dead in June, but staffers at the Department of Justice and White House have continued telling MAGA allies they could still expect to receive some form of payment.

Even if he’s not confirmed before the Senate’s August recess, Blanche will continue to serve as acting attorney general. But it would be a humiliating blow to the president, who is clearly losing his grip on party members.