Cruz says Blanche faced "full-on revolt" over DOJ fund at meeting with GOP senators

Politics Sen. Ted Cruz says Blanche faced "full-on revolt" over "anti-weaponization fund" in meeting with GOP senators By Caitlin Yilek Caitlin Yilek Politics Reporter Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation. Read Full Bio Caitlin Yilek Updated on: May 22, 2026 / 6:34 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Washington — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said a two-hour meeting Thursday with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about the Justice Department's new "anti-weaponization fund" was "one of the roughest meetings I've seen in my entire time in the Senate." "There were fireworks at an epic level," Cruz said Friday on his podcast. "Fiery does not begin to cut it." Blanche was dispatched to the Capitol to try and convince skeptical Republican lawmakers to drop their opposition to the nearly $1.8 billion fund to pay people who claim they were politically persecuted. The announcement of the fund — part of a settlement to resolve President Trump's lawsuit against the IRS — came as senators prepared to vote on a reconciliation package to fund border security and immigration enforcement through the end of Mr. Trump's term. The reconciliation measure is unrelated to the Justice Department fund, but Democrats vowed to force votes on amendments targeting the fund during the Senate's vote-a-rama on the funding package, which was expected to begin Thursday. Instead, lawmakers canceled votes after the Blanche meeting and went home for the Memorial Day recess. "We were going to lose those amendment votes because of the 40-plus Republicans in the room, I'd say half of them were ready to vote with the Democrats on this," Cruz said. "If the judgment fund had not been announced this week, we would be right now on the Senate floor, w...