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This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana Making buying a car 100% online with real transparent pricing and customizable financing that fits your budget. Browse thousands of cars and get yours delivered. Visit Carvana.com today. Delivery fees and terms may apply. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.
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I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Supreme Court and the Justice Department.
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And I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House.
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And we are recording this podcast at 12:19pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, June 2nd. And today we're talking about new developments with President Trump's controversial nearly $1.8 billion anti weaponization fund. So, Kerry, in the last couple days, two separate courts have weighed in on this fund. I want to start with the order that came down from a judge in Virginia late last week. What happened there?
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So in that case in Virginia, a former Justice Department prosecutor, a professor, and several other organizations and nonprofits that basically are somehow crosswise with the Trump administration sued over this nearly $2 billion fund that the president has created or wants to create. They basically say that because they in some ways have been victims of the administration, they should be able to apply for this fund, but it seems like the criteria will not apply to them. And they sued in this federal court. A judge put this fund on pause. She basically wants to be that for the next couple of weeks. No taxpayer money gets dispersed to anybody who might have applied to this fund already while she can take a measure of the case and make sure that it's a lawful situation.
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Okay, so that's case number one. Case number two is based in Florida. What can you tell us is happening there?
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The Florida case involves a lawsuit that President Trump brought against his own government. This is the case where Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service because of the leak of his tax return several years ago, and Trump had asked for $10 billion. When it came time for Trump to show up in court right before that, his lawyers withdrew the case and said that they had a settlement. And the settlement, of course, was the creation of this fund. The judge thought that was unusual, but dismissed the case. And something wild happened. Something like 35 retired or former federal judges weighed in. They told this judge in Florida that she still have a way to scrutinize the settlement and scrutinize this fund. And the judge in Florida agreed. She said there may be a narrow path for her to review the fund. She asked to hear from Trump's lawyers and to find out more about the settlement and basically is asking questions about whether there might have been a fraud on the court, because the president is kind of on both sides of this lawsuit, and they didn't share the terms of the settlement with her before she dismissed the case.
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Yeah, I feel like every time we talk about this with you, Carrie, we talk about how the entire legal world has looked at all of these developments as very unprecedented. So it's worth saying that that is, we are just in uncharted waters in a lot of different ways here.
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And then, Miles, a day after the Justice Department announced this settlement, some new provisions emerged. It was just three paragraphs that were signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. And they seem to give the president and two of his sons and two of Trump entities basically civil immunity from any kind of tax problems they may have had in the past, including ongoing tax audits and liabilities and maybe by some lawyers, read even immunity for a bunch of other things as well. This was an almost unheard of grant, and it was not signed by anybody in the Treasury Department of the irs, just by the acting Attorney general, Trump's former personal lawyer. Wow.
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I mean, how is that playing out with Republicans as well, Franco?
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I mean, it's raising a lot, a lot of questions. I mean, it is the most audacious move by the Trump administration to shield Trump from tax scrutiny. I mean, we have long reported that Trump has kind of resisted traditions where presidents release their filings. But this really prevents the IRS from scrutinizing his tax returns, but also those of his family and his business. As Kerry was just saying, I mean, this is the kind of special treatment by the IRS that is not given to any other Americans. And critics are understandably raising alarm bells that this raises major constitutional questions about presidential control and the government acting independently or the government acting on behalf of the president's personal interests. I also don't think this is going to go away. I really think that Democrats are going to, you know, make as much hay as they can, especially if they win the House back after the midterms. I expect hearings on this.
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One of the interesting things, also, politically speaking, Franco, is that the pushback to this fund is not just Democrats. It's bipartisan, specifically on Capitol Hill. What can you tell us about what's going on in Capitol Hill with relation to this fund?
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Yeah, I mean, the pushback from Republicans has been quite fascinating because Republicans have really been really strong, and it's kind of derailed a lot of the work, particularly on immigration. There was an immigration bill, GOP led immigration action that they were trying to get through. And it was blocked because of this. Democrats actually threatened to do all these amendments that would put Republicans on the record. And that was a very uncomfortable position because Republicans have been very adamant and concerned about this and concerned about the optics of what this would look like.
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Concerned about the optics because based on the really vague criteria for this fund that we've heard out of the Justice Department so far, it's possible that people who beat up police on January 6 and got pardon from the president could actually collect taxpayer money from this fund. It's a bad look even for many Republicans on Capitol Hill.
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What are Republicans specifically saying about the idea of this fund? Are they just, I guess, how directly are they opposed to the idea of this fund?
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I mean, many of them are very deposed. I mean, I think NPR has shown that there's about 30 who are prepared to vote against this and try to block this from going through. I mean, there are different reasons that they're for it. I mean, Kerry very eloquently pointed one in the fact that police officers were attacked. And this is a kind of fund that could potentially reward those people. Not only would it reward people who attacked police, but also would be reward people who attacked them, Republicans who were in the chambers at that time when the riots were happening on January 6th. There's also concerns about funding. I mean, it's Congress that handles the purse of the government. This is just giving the president more and more power. It goes into the debate about executive powers, it goes into the debate about separation of powers. And what type of authority are you going to give, you know, the president of the United States and kind of overseeing institutions that are supposed to be independent.
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How is the administration responding to all this pushback?
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Yeah, so the White House, you know, is referring to the doj, and the DOJ put out a statement that it presented to all the reporters saying that while they largely disagree with the court's decision here, it is going to abide by the court's ruling.
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What do you make of that, Carrie, this statement from the doj, well, not
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too long ago, it would be unremarkable for anybody in the government to say we're going to abide by a court ruling. But given the way the last year and change has gone, it is something for this Justice Department to say we're going to be on a holding pattern, as this judge in Virginia has said, at least for a couple of weeks. And there are a lot of open questions we can talk about moving forward about this settlement and what exactly the Trump administration is going to do in response to this judge.
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So in the statement, DOJ says that this fund was open to people who were Democratic, people who are Republican, people independent, basically says it wasn't a political thing. It was open to people of all political persuasions. It seems like a lot of people are skeptical of that. Why is that?
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Well, is the government led by Donald Trump going to give Hunter Biden some money? That's one reason to be skeptical.
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All right. We can take a quick break. More on all of this in just a moment.
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Brazil used to have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. People called it the country of the future. Their songs, oh, Brazil, El Pais do
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Futur, because it seems like we have it all, man.
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But then the music stopped on the Planet Money podcast. A lot of countries these days aren't
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rich, they aren't poor.
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They're just kind of stuck in the middle. Why is that? Listen on the NPR app or wherever
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you get your podcasts.
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And we're back. So I want to dig more into the GOP backlash to this fund. You know, the idea of a weaponized government against President Trump and his allies has been a big political talking point for the president. But there was just a poll released last Week, an Economist YouGov poll that found that just 32% of people who identified as MAGA support this, but 45% oppose it. Franco, did the president just misread the room here in terms of how the broader public or even how his base would support something like this?
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I mean, I think, yes. I mean, look, the president has always had a reputation of having his finger on the pulse of the American public, particularly of Republicans and particularly of his supporters, getting them to do whatever he wants. I mean, it's been very clear the last few weeks and months actually, even with how he has change things in primaries in the upcoming midterm elections. I mean, he has reshaped the Republican Party unlike any politician has done in recent memory. So here you have an example of so many Republicans coming out speaking against this fund and not only doing that after the DOJ says they're going to abide by the rule. That's clearly not enough for so many of these Republicans that they're continuing to talk about it and say they want more. So I do feel like this is, this is very eye opening and this is a change potentially because of how vociferously these Republicans are speaking out.
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In some ways, this is a real insult to Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the power to appropriate funds and say how they should be used. And under the terms of this settlement, basically, the administration will just take $1.776 billion and transfer it into a pot that is controlled, controlled by the Justice Department and given to people under criteria. The Justice Department will create and under control of a board whose members can be fired by President Trump. And that does not give Congress and members of Congress much of a say. Moreover, there are now something like four lawsuits that have been filed against this fund. And while judges are taking some action, say, to pause things or give this fund a closer look, it's not at all clear appeals courts are going to agree that judges have those powers or that anybody has the kind of standing or injury to pursue these claims in court. That being said, it's the story of the Trump administration. In many ways, the administration is doing things that no one has ever seen or heard of. And the recourse often is to go to court putting judges in really uncomfortable positions that test their own power.
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So, as you mentioned there, Franco, it seems like the Trump administration saying that it's going to abide by the court's ruling is not necessarily enough to satisfy some of the critics of this fund.
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No, I mean, apparently not. I mean, they're clearly saying, Republicans are clearly saying that it's not enough to say it won't fight the courts, that that's not enough. They want it to be very, very clear. I mean, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the best way to handle this is for the administration to announce itself that it was shutting down this. And if it doesn't, and if it is not very clear, GOP leaders warn that it really risks derailing more of Trump's agenda, including getting that immigration bill back on the floor for a vote. And it's not just Republicans expressing this. This is Congressman Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York, speaking with NPR's Morning Edition.
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One story that really gets me going is a story of a police officer on the ground being beaten up, everybody saying, kill him, kill him, kill him. And this is one guy, Daniel Rodriguez, takes a Taser, sticks it in the police officer's neck and Tasers him. Police officer has a heart attack, has brain damage because of that. He got a 12 year sentence for his attack on this police officer. And President Trump pardoned that guy. Now, this fund could potentially be used to give him money because he was unfairly prosecuted by the federal government.
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Yeah. Suozzi is co authoring legislation with the Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzgerald Patrick to block taxpayer money from being used for this fund. And what you're hearing there, Miles, is something that I think the president maybe just didn't really get. I mean, suozzian members of the Congress were in the chambers when the riots were happening. I mean, this is a different type of emotion, a different type of feeling. This is personal for many of them.
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Just yesterday, three Democrats in the Senate introduced their own legislation, Adam Schiff of California, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan, to try to put a halt to what they consider to be the slush fund. And you know, even though the administration says it's going to abide by this court order in this two week pause, it's really not at all clear. This idea is dead. This fund could be unpaused. And the provision that Todd Blanch, the acting Attorney general, signed off on that would give immunity to the president and two of his children and their businesses with respect previous tax returns and tax audits, nothing has been said about that that may still be operational. And that's what got so many members of Congress irritated to begin with.
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Yeah, I mean, I think. Absolutely. I mean, when I think Republicans know better than anyone else that Trump's memory is long, he does not forget. And if it's not very, very clear, it could come back.
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Okay, so then, as this moves forward, what are you both watching for as this continues to unfold?
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You know, I've been speaking with tax law experts over the past couple of weeks since this idea got floated, and they say that the Justice Department alone does not have the power to sign off on ending pre existing IRS audits. So I'm wondering if it will emerge that someone at the IRS or the Treasury Department actually signed off on this stuff and if so, whether there's a paper trail that Democrats in Congress can pursue or maybe can emerge as part of the court system. I'm also waiting to see and hear what the administration does next because so many members of Congress want the president himself to come out and put the kibosh on this whole idea and he doesn't seem to want to do it. And we've seen reversals in the past. Remember this administration and the Justice Department tried to back away from an appeal on those law firm executive orders Trump signed, only to get reversed, apparently by the president himself after some media coverage. So it's a very tricky kind of messaging situation right now for the administration.
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Yeah, I'm actually very curious about the immunity deal as well, but more so from kind of a political standpoint and seeing if it gets more traction in the American public, if it starts to resonate more, especially as the midterm elections come about. The anti weaponization fund has just got so much of the attention. Heard it in Swozzi's quote just a minute ago about what makes his blood boiling. You know, this tax immunity thing. A lot of Americans would love to have this type of protection. I'm curious if more blood will be boiling about this as well and whether that will have an impact come the next few months as campaign season really kicks in.
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All right. Well, we can leave it there for today. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.
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I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Supreme Court and the Justice Department.
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And I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House.
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And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.
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A grassy green lawn might look nice, but it's going to eat up resources like drinking water and the gas you put in the mower. You can do a solid for the environment by ditching even just some of your lawn and replacing it with a wildlife friendly garden. Life Kit has tips to get you started. No green thumb required. Listen to the Life Kit podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from Squarespace, a platform for building a custom on brand website. Choose from award winning templates, showcase your work and manage payments. Visit squarespace.com NPR to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.