A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The Trump administration says it will not violate a court order. The order is about the president's $1.8 billion pool of money to pay people who claim past administrations targeted them. Democrats and Republicans in Congress have opposed the fund since it was announced. In a few minutes, we'll hear from one of them - Representative Tom Suozzi.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A judge temporarily blocked the administration from creating it last week. And Monday, the Justice Department said it would, quote, "abide" by that temporary ruling.
MARTÍNEZ: Here to make sense of all this is NPR political reporter Elena Moore. So, Elena, a lot of back-and-forth on this. Chop it up for us.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Yeah. So this all connects back to a different lawsuit. Back in February, President Trump announced he was suing his own government over a 2019 leak of his tax records. So he sued the IRS for $10 billion. But then last month, when a federal judge in Florida overseeing that case started questioning its merits, Trump dropped the case. And the administration announced a settlement where the Justice Department would start this antiweaponization fund to compensate people who were allegedly targeted by the government for their political beliefs. And, A, that drew bipartisan backlash and concerns that it could be used to pay people who were convicted for storming the Capitol on January 6.
MARTÍNEZ: What did the Trump administration have to say about that?
MOORE: In a statement on X Monday, the Department of Justice said it strongly disagrees with the court's ruling. The DOJ also defended who would qualify for this fund, saying it was available to anybody who was, quote, "weaponized, targeted or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, conservative, independent or otherwise," end quote. NPR also reached out to the White House for a comment, but a White House spokesperson pointed to this same statement.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So it's paused, but is paused going to eventually lead to stopped?
MOORE: Right. Well, at this moment, that is unclear. Right now it's on hold, and the federal judge in Virginia overseeing the case has to decide whether that temporary restraining order should be permanent. There's a hearing scheduled for June 12 next week, but we really can't say how the judge will rule, and we don't know how the administration will respond. So a bit of a holding pattern right now, and that's notable because this has caused a lot of headaches for the White House. You know, we don't see Republicans break with the president very often, but this is an issue where there has been some rare pushback within the party. Even after the DOJ's statement yesterday about, you know, abiding by the court's decision, we saw multiple Senate Republicans push for the White House to just end the fund.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So what might this mean for the president's agenda?
MOORE: Remember, the midterms are fast approaching, and Republicans are trying to score some legislative wins. But we've already seen this fund become a distraction. Last month, it derailed Republicans' plans to pass some $70 billion for immigration enforcement. Senate Republicans want to try again to pass it this week. But the antiweaponization fund has been complicating that because Democrats have been promising to introduce amendments that would put GOP lawmakers on the record about the fund, and that could be a difficult result for the White House.
You know, we know that as many as 30 Republicans have indicated they might support a vote to ban the fund. Also, you know, I said it was rare for GOP lawmakers to break with the president. What's more rare, A? When his base does. An Economist/YouGov poll from last week found that less than a third of MAGA voters support this fund.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR political reporter Elena Moore. Thanks a lot.
MOORE: Thanks so much, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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