By Sarah Ferris, Aileen Graef, Alison Main, Manu Raju, Adam Cancryn

(CNN) — President Donald Trump declined to commit to permanently scrapping a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund on Wednesday, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins he still considered the controversial initiative “a beautiful thing”

The comments inject fresh uncertainty into the Senate’s effort to pass $70 billion in new immigration enforcement funding. But Senate GOP leaders are powering ahead with plans to pass that funding — despite the remaining sharp disagreements in the party over how to handle the controversial settlement fund.

Success is not yet guaranteed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his team are still working to quell internal GOP tensions over Trump’s push for the fund, which was created to compensate people who claim they were victimized by the government. The administration has sought to convince Congress that the fund is dead, with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche telling lawmakers on Tuesday that it’s “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Trump, though, has been far less clear, defending the fund on Wednesday and refusing to commit to scrapping it permanently.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers, I don’t know,” he told CNN on whether the fund is fully dead or just on hold. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a beautiful thing.”

Trump had earlier seemed to downplay his administration dropping the fund, saying only that “a court ruled against it” in a podcast interview with the New York Post that was taped Tuesday and released Wednesday.

And there’s another major headache for Trump in the immigration enforcement funding bill: Senate Republicans formally stripped out nearly $1 billion in security funds, including for his East Wing ballroom project, in the latest version of the legislative text released Wednesday.

Senate moving ahead with marathon voting session

Even with questions remaining over the status of the “anti-weaponization” fund, Senate GOP leaders plan to soon kick off a marathon voting session to pass that massive pot of immigration enforcement funding. Those votes are expected to begin early Thursday morning, likely lasting all day and into the evening.

The Senate already voted along party lines, 53 to 46, to take a first step to advance the package of ICE and border patrol funds, which GOP leaders aim to get to Trump’s desk this week.

That immigration enforcement funding bill — which some Republicans predict will be Trump’s last major legislative victory before the midterms — has been stalled for weeks by the ongoing GOP rebellion over the “anti-weaponization” fund.

And GOP leaders are still looking to defuse a potential revolt by a small gang of Republicans who have concerns about backing it without explicitly killing the fund in writing. GOP leaders are not yet sure how many of those Republican defectors would back an amendment by Sen. Thom Tillis to formally nix the fund –– language that could jeopardize the rest of the measure.

Tillis said Wednesday that he “100%” supports eliminating Trump’s fund through legislation and plans to introduce his own amendment to do so.

“I think even DOJ knows that this was a bad idea, and what we need to do is provide finality,” the North Carolina Republican said. “I’ve made it very clear what I intend to do.”

Another GOP skeptic, Sen. John Curtis of Utah, told CNN that he is “certainly” interested in trying to make sure the fund is fully eliminated in the bill and said he’s in talks with Senate officials about how to do so. Asked if he’s concerned whether Trump could still compensate January 6, 2021, rioters even if the fund is nixed, Curtis said: “Who wouldn’t, right?”

That January 6 focus has frustrated some Trump allies who were targeted in earlier federal investigations into Russian election meddling and Trump and Ukraine. Those allies argued that the original idea for the fund was primarily to aid low-level staffers and others in Trump’s orbit who were caught up in those earlier investigations and forced to pay hefty legal fees, according to two sources familiar with the discussions about the fund.

Instead, initial coverage of the fund was quickly overtaken by January 6 rioters’ vows to seek taxpayer-funded compensation — and Trump officials’ subsequent refusals to disqualify those who assaulted Capitol police officers from seeking paydays.

That likely contributed significantly to backlash on the Hill, where many lawmakers are not eager to see January 6 defendants compensated. Sen. Bill Cassidy, another Republican who’s been vocal about his anger over the fund, suggested he supports Tillis’ push.

“I want to make sure it’s not mostly dead, that it is truly dead,” Cassidy said.

Senate GOP leaders, including Thune, have not said how they would handle a potential Tillis amendment, if he chooses to offer it during the marathon voting session — and if it passes procedural muster.

Trump calls fund ‘so important’

Trump argued in his podcast interview that people who he claims were targeted by a “crooked government” deserve compensation.

“And these were many great people. And I gave them pardons. I’m very proud to have given them pardons. And I think they should be reimbursed for a crooked government,” he said.

The fund, he told later reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, is “so important,” at one point invoking the need to make amends with supporters like those who attacked the US Capitol.

“They went there with love,” he said of the rioters. “And those people have been abused.”

A Republican aide earlier Wednesday downplayed the notion that Trump’s comments on the podcast would impact his agenda in Congress.

“I don’t feel concerned about what he said,” the aide said. “Don’t love it, but him saying a court ruled against it is about as close to ‘yes I’m dropping it’ as we will get.”

The aide added that Blanche “was very clear” during Tuesday’s congressional hearing.

“We are not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche told a House Appropriations subcommittee.

“Not moving forward, ever?” asked Democratic Rep. Grace Meng. “Correct,” Blanche said.

Thune told reporters Wednesday morning that he believed Blanche’s comments about the fund were “extremely helpful” toward resolving his members’ anger.

Still, others have raised other ways to create such a fund. In a post on X, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said he appreciated Blanche’s statement but proposed creating “a weaponization fund that will be available to those who can prove their claim against the federal government through the Federal Tort Claims Act.”

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, Jr. responded to Graham’s post saying, “We’re on it.” The post included no explanation and was later deleted.

Last week, a federal judge in Virginia had temporarily blocked the administration from taking steps to set up the fund and barred it from releasing any money from it.

But that ruling was highly technical; it didn’t address the legality of the program but was instead intended to get the court time to review a lawsuit seeking to kill the program in full.

During the podcast interview, Trump also praised the acting attorney general, who replaced Pam Bondi in April, saying that Blanche is “doing a very good job” at DOJ.

When asked if he would try to install Blanche permanently in the attorney general role, Trump said he would.

This headline and story have been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Devan Cole, Paula Reid, Hannah Rabinowitz, Holmes Lybrand and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.