‘We’re Going Home’: GOP Cancels Votes After Revolt Over Trump Settlement Fund

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (Reuters)
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey and Declan Cody

Good Thursday evening! It has been 487 days since President Trump returned to the White House, meaning that we are now a third of the way through his second term. And while Trump has repeatedly demonstrated in recent days that he still holds massive sway over Republican voters, he's running into more trouble with lawmakers in his own party, many of whom worry about facing angry voters in November - and fear that Trump and White House officials don't appear to care all that much about maintaining GOP control of Congress. "Our majority is melting down before our eyes," one unnamed Republican senator reportedly wrote in a text to Punchbowl News.

Here's the latest.

'We're Going Home': GOP Cancels Votes After Revolt Over Trump Settlement Fund

Senate Republican leaders on Thursday scrapped a planned vote on a $70-plus billion immigration-enforcement funding package after intraparty clashes over the Trump administration's politically toxic $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund and money for President Trump's ballroom.

Republican leaders had been aiming to kick off a marathon vote-a-rama on the funding package and proposed amendments, but they ran into disputes on multiple fronts as they raced to finalize the legislative text and secure the 50 votes needed to pass the bill. With progress stalled, GOP leaders gave up hopes of passing the package by the June 1 deadline set by the president and instead headed home for their Memorial Day recess.

"We're going home," Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told reporters.

Republicans were already expected to abandon a plan to include $1 billion in Secret Service funding, including some $220 million to secure President Trump's new ballroom project, as part of their bill. An internal GOP backlash to the proposed funding meant that it likely wouldn't have the votes needed to pass. The provision also ran into trouble with the Senate parliamentarian, who ruled over the weekend that it failed to comply with the chamber's rules for the partisan budget reconciliation process Republicans are using to pass the legislation.

Then a firestorm of questions over the Justice Department's announced creation of a $1.776 billion settlement fund raised additional concerns among lawmakers, further complicating the scramble to enact the reconciliation bill.

Critics charge that the deal essentially provides a taxpayer-funded slush fund for the president and his allies and amounts to blatant self-dealing. Angry GOP senators reportedly voiced their objections to the fund during a nearly two-hour meeting Thursday with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer who agreed to the "anti-weaponization" fund as part of a Justice Department deal to settle a questionable $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service by the president, two of his sons and his business.

Democrats had said that they would look to block the fund as part of a vote series on the funding bill or try to prevent payments to violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Republicans reportedly discussed proposing their own guardrails on the fund as they looked to head off potentially potent Democratic attacks on the issue. The White House had indicated to Senate Republicans that Trump could veto any bill that restricted the "anti-weaponization" fund and left out the money for the Secret Service and ballroom, according to Semafor, though a White House official disputed that report.

As Republican divisions festered, Senate Majority Leader John Thune canceled Thursday's planned votes. "It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean, straightforward," a frustrated Thune said of the funding package, "and it got a little bit more complicated this week."

With senators leaving for their long holiday break, House leaders, who had been waiting for the Senate to send over the funding bill, quickly followed suit and canceled Friday votes.

Asked by a reporter at the White House if he was losing control of Senate Republicans, Trump said: "I don't know, I really don't know. I can tell you I only do what's right."

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer slammed the Republican disarray and said that Americans are suffering because of it. "This afternoon, Republicans - so divided, so dysfunctional, so disorganized - are fleeing Washington," Schumer said at a news conference. "Their majority can't melt down fast enough, not when Americans' financial situation is melting down every day."

The bottom line: Republicans are divided over Trump's priorities and that has stalled the immigration funding plan they support, meaning it won't get to the president's desk by his self-imposed June 1 deadline. Thune said the Senate would pick up where it left off when lawmakers return next month.

Trump Admin to Invest $2 Billion in Quantum Computing Firms, Take Equity Stakes

The Trump administration plans to invest $2 billion in nine companies in the field of quantum computing, the U.S. Department of Commerce said Thursday. As with previous U.S. investments under Trump in firms including Intel and US Steel, the federal government will receive minority ownership stakes in the companies in return for the investments.

Industrial technology giant IBM will receive $1 billion, the largest investment overall. IBM said it will use the money to establish Anderon, a new subsidiary based in Albany, New York, that will build "America's first pure-play quantum foundry" to produce high-tech computer chips.

Semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries will receive $375 million, also to establish a new chip foundry, and the United States will receive a 1% ownership share in the company.

The remaining seven companies, which take a variety of approaches to the developing technology, will receive smaller investments, with six receiving $100 million and one receiving $38 million. They include the publicly traded firms D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing and Infleqtion.

Funding for the investments comes from the CHIPS and Science Act signed by former President Joe Biden in 2022.

What is it? An emerging field that uses quantum mechanics to solve problems faster than the fastest supercomputers, quantum computing has received renewed attention from investors following recent technological breakthroughs. Combined with artificial intelligence, quantum computing has the potential to sharply accelerate the process of scientific research and overturn existing protocols, making it a matter of national security in the eyes of many of its advocates.

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the investments will help the United States secure leadership in the field. "These strategic quantum technology investments will build on our domestic industry, creating thousands of high-paying American jobs while advancing American quantum capabilities," he said in a statement released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency within Commerce that promotes industrial competitiveness.

Still, some tech analysts worry that the investments may be too risky for public funds, adding to general concerns about the federal government under Trump getting too involved in private industry. A senior Commerce official told The Wall Street Journal that the department is making multiple investments to spread out the risk, and acknowledged that it could take many years for any of the investments to pay off.

Trump Disapproval Rating Soars as Economic Angst Grows: Poll

Americans are increasingly unhappy about President Trump's handling of the economy - and his disapproval ratings are rising fast, according to a new Fox News poll.

The survey, released Wednesday evening, finds that 71% of voters disapprove of Trump's management of the economy, up from 56% a year ago and 66% just last month - a remarkable 5-percentage-point jump that was fueled largely by a 7- point rise in disapproval among Republicans.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed say the economy is in bad shape, up from 73% a month ago. Just over half of voters say their personal finances are worse now than they were two years ago. And 57% say that Trump's policies will hurt the country in the long run.

Overall, Trump's approval rating stands at 39% in the Fox poll, down 3 percentage points from last month, while 61% disapprove of the president's performance, including 48% who "strongly disapprove."

Daron Shaw, a Republican pollster who conducted the survey along with Democrat Chris Anderson, told Fox News that voters' key concern is obvious and that economic worries are undermining Trump's support, even among his base: "Make no mistake; it's all about affordability. Independents jumped ship in 2025, and now non-MAGA Republicans and other core constituencies are wavering."

The poll was conducted from May 15-18 among 1,002 randomly selected registered voters. It has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3 percentage points.

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