GOP Expected to Halt $1B Security Bill 05/21 06:10

   Senate Republican leaders are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion 
in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's 
ballroom on Thursday after members of their own party questioned the timing and 
the lack of detail in the Secret Service request.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republican leaders are expected to abandon a 
proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and 
President Donald Trump's ballroom on Thursday after members of their own party 
questioned the timing and the lack of detail in the Secret Service request.

   Pressured by the White House, Republicans have tried to add the money to a 
roughly $70 billion bill to restore funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement and the Border Patrol. But the security proposal met with backlash 
from some GOP lawmakers who are questioning the cost and how the taxpayer 
dollars would be used.

   The bill's text has not yet been released, but the Senate hopes to pass it 
this week and send it to the House before leaving for a weeklong Memorial Day 
recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged "ongoing vote 
issues" on Wednesday as leaders tired to measure Republican support, as well as 
"ongoing parliamentarian issues" as they try to figure out what will be allowed 
in the bill under the chamber's rules.

   Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Wednesday that the bill would be "back to 
square one" without the security money because "the votes are not there."

   Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to the 
bill was a "bad idea" and he does not think there is enough backing to pass it, 
even if the cost were reduced.

   The wrangling comes as Democrats have criticized Republicans for trying to 
fund Trump's ballroom when voters are concerned about basic affordability 
issues -- and as some GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with 
Trump. Several GOP senators have spoken out against the administration's $1.776 
billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump's allies who believe they 
have been persecuted, and many were upset by the president's endorsement 
Tuesday of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the party primary runoff next 
week against Sen. John Cornyn.

   "There's always a consequence with taking on United States senators," Thune 
said Wednesday. The president "obviously has his favorites and people he wants 
to endorse and that's his prerogative. But what we have to deal with up here is 
moving the agenda, and obviously that can become slightly more complicated."

   Republicans could set parameters on Trump's settlement fund

   The "anti-weaponization" fund, part of a settlement that resolves Trump's 
lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, 
has unexpectedly become one of the main complications in the bill. Democrats 
said they would force votes to block it or place restrictions on it.

   Democrats have an opening because Republicans are trying to pass the 
immigration enforcement bill through a complicated budget process that requires 
a long series of amendment votes. Democrats are considering multiple 
amendments, potentially to block that new fund outright or to ban any payments 
to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, 
attack on the Capitol.

   Those amendments, along with others, could pass as a growing number of 
Republicans have voiced reservations about the fund. So Republicans are now 
discussing their own last-minute additions to head that off, potentially 
placing some parameters on the settlement and who could receive compensation, 
according to two people with knowledge of the private discussions who requested 
anonymity to discuss them.

   Thune -- who said Tuesday that he is "not a big fan" of the settlement and 
doesn't see a purpose for it --- said Wednesday that any new language 
potentially putting restrictions on the settlement is "a work in progress."

   It's unclear how any Senate Republican changes would be received in the 
House, even as some Republicans there have also criticized the settlement.

   House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that the House will pass 
the bill "whatever form it takes."

   Tensions rise between Senate and White House

   As Republicans challenged the settlement and parts of his agenda, Trump 
unloaded on the Senate in a social media post.

   He urged Republicans to fire the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth 
MacDonough, who said over the weekend that parts of the $1 billion security 
proposal cannot remain in the ICE and Border Patrol bill. Trump also renewed 
his long-standing calls for the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, a Republican bill 
that would require all voters to prove U.S. citizenship, and to end the Senate 
filibuster.

   Republicans need to "get smart and tough," Trump said, or "you'll all be 
looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!"

   While they have been loyal to Trump on most issues, Senate Republicans have 
resisted his repeated calls -- even in his first term -- to kill the 
filibuster, which triggers a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

   Hanging over the growing GOP rift is Trump's surprise endorsement of Paxton. 
That intervention has Republican senators privately fuming that it could cost 
them their majority in November as they view the incumbent, Cornyn, as the 
better candidate in the November general election.

   Secret Service request falters as Republicans want more detail

   Under the Secret Service's request, about $220 million would fund security 
improvements related to the ballroom. The rest would go for a new screening 
center for visitors, training and other security measures.

   Tillis said the bill should not have included the other security 
improvements "because it's just giving everybody the 'billion-dollar ballroom.'"

   Several other Republicans in the House and Senate have questioned the 
request, and senators left a briefing with the director of the Secret Service 
last week saying they needed a lot more information.

   People "can't afford groceries and gasoline and healthcare, and we're going 
to do a billion dollars for a ballroom?" asked Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who 
lost reelection in his GOP primary on Saturday after Trump endorsed one of his 
opponents.

   Left in the bill is the money for ICE and Border Patrol, which Democrats 
have blocked for months in protest of the Trump administration's immigration 
enforcement crackdown.

   Democrats demanded reforms for the agencies, but negotiations with the White 
House yielded little progress. So Republicans are using the complicated budget 
maneuver called reconciliation -- the same process that allowed them to pass 
Trump's tax and spending cuts bill last year -- to fund the agencies through 
the end of Trump's term with a simple majority and no Democratic votes.

   Still, passage requires signoff from the parliamentarian and unity from 
Republicans.

   "We're working on it," Thune said as he left the Capitol on Wednesday 
evening.