STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The Senate passed a bill overnight funding immigration enforcement, and it just took them 18 hours.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It was almost a party-line vote, with just one Republican opposed. Lawmakers failed to approve amendments blocking President Trump's agreement with himself to establish a $1.8 billion fund. Democrats were outraged by the agreement. Many Republicans said they were, too, but most voted to block amendments that would displease the president. In a few minutes, we'll ask a former Republican National Committee communications chief about these developments. But we're going to begin with the flurry of voting that continued into the early morning hours today.
INSKEEP: NPR's congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt has been up just about all night. Barbara, good morning.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, I want to talk about the amendments, Michel mentioned, but what is the underlying bill that just passed?
SPRUNT: Right. So if we cast back to earlier this year, Senate Democrats blocked funding the Department of Homeland Security over concerns about the way it was conducting immigration enforcement, specifically after federal agents killed two protesters in Minneapolis. Eventually, at the end of April, after a long shutdown, Congress funded the department, everything except immigration enforcement. And Republicans decided to use a budget tool called reconciliation in order to fund that to fund ICE, to fund Border Patrol in a separate bill. And this is that bill. It would fund those agencies for three years.
INSKEEP: Three years. For the rest of Trump's presidency, Congress wouldn't have to vote on it again. This is a thing the president really wanted, and Democrats took the opportunity to offer amendments to that. What happened?
SPRUNT: That's right. Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, in this vote-a-rama scenario, both parties can offer amendments, get the other party on the record on various things. And the thing that was most interesting to me were these amendments where there was crossover support. You know, there was some Republican support for an amendment to restrict funding for President Trump's ballroom, another one of his big projects, for example. But the subject that came up again and again was the Trump administration's earlier proposal to create that nearly $2 billion settlement fund you were mentioning to pay out supporters who say they've been persecuted by the government.
There was a proposal from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to prevent that creation altogether. It failed. But three Republicans, including senators in tough races in Ohio and Alaska, voted with Democrats. Another proposal would have redirected the money from that fund to fraud enforcement. That had more Republican support. And Republicans writ large voted against an amendment that would prohibit payouts from any weaponization fund to people convicted of assaulting law enforcement on January 6. Eight Republicans did join Democrats in voting for it.
INSKEEP: OK, all those amendments failed. The bill did pass. Why did it get to be so difficult?
SPRUNT: You know, in large part because of the White House. There was bipartisan pushback at that anti-weaponization fund. The acting attorney general said it's not going to move forward, which seemed to satisfy senators. But then the president told reporters he didn't actually know if it was scrapped or not. And he said that knowing that there are these Republican senators who are uncomfortable with the idea. So this moment for Congressional Republicans is about passing this priority after all this time, but it's also a moment where there's this increasing tension and conflict with the White House, and I don't think that's stopping anytime soon.
INSKEEP: Althought it seems that the tension is resolved again and again with Republicans just obeying. I just want to note, Barbara, back on Monday, our own Eric McDaniel told us that as many as 30 Senate Republicans were ready to vote against Trump's fund, and then we get to actually voting, and one amendment had just three Republicans voting for it, leaving it shy of passing. There were other amendments that never had quite enough votes to pass. Are Republicans still trying very hard not to cross the president, even on this fund that they really didn't like?
SPRUNT: You know, I think there's at least a handful of Republican senators this morning asking themselves that same question, Steve. You know, some of those GOP amendments that were crafted were made in a way to be as attractive as they could be to the full Republican conference. And as you said, we saw them fail to meet the threshold time and time again.
INSKEEP: NPR's Barbara Sprunt. Thanks.
SPRUNT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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