The Senate Judiciary Committee votes Tuesday at 9 a.m. on whether to advance Todd Blanche's nomination to be attorney general, the panel's last scheduled action before the August recess [1]. Two Republican votes are not yet committed, and over the weekend the president told those two senators what a no vote will cost.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina want a written assurance before they vote yes: that Trump will abandon the roughly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, a compensation vehicle drawn from a settlement tied to Trump's lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury, announced in May [1]. A federal judge blocked the fund that same month, and the Justice Department said in June it would not proceed with it [1].

Trump's answer removed the ambiguity. If the two senators will not confirm Blanche, he said, 'then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill... It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done' [1].

Asked about the fund at Camp David, Trump described it in the past tense, with regret: 'Well, it is dead, but you know, I wish it weren't. To be honest with you, I think people were horribly treated' [1]. Tillis called the reversal 'disappointing' and said he hoped for a resolution by Tuesday [1].

The arrangement Trump is threatening to extend is already four months old. He removed Pam Bondi as attorney general on April 2, announcing that 'Todd Blanche will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General' [2][3]. Blanche was confirmed by the Senate in March 2025, for the deputy attorney general job, not this one [3]. His confirmation hearings for the permanent post were held July 15 and 16. The committee vote Tuesday is the step that has not happened.

Set the two halves of the threat side by side, because they do different work. Reviving the fund would mean resurrecting a program a federal judge has already blocked and the department's own leadership walked away from a month later. Keeping Blanche as acting attorney general would mean running the Justice Department indefinitely under a leader the Senate declined to confirm for it. The first half is policy hardball. The second converts the confirmation vote from a check into a formality with a penalty attached: vote yes and Blanche leads the department, vote no and Blanche leads the department while $1.8 billion comes back.

The grievance underneath the fund is not invented from nothing, and it deserves stating in the president's own terms: he believes people were 'horribly treated' by federal law enforcement, and a president pressing senators of his own party to confirm his nominee is ordinary politics practiced by every administration. The departure is the currency. Cornyn and Tillis are not being lobbied on Blanche's qualifications. They are being told that their no vote comes bundled with the revival of a program the courts have ruled on once already, and that the nomination they are being asked to judge will survive their judgment either way.

Tillis says he hopes Tuesday settles it [1]. The committee gavels in at 9 a.m.