Transcript: Trump Rages as GOP Sen. Nukes IRS Fund in Epic Humiliation

As Trump’s fury grows over the demise of his corrupt IRS “lawsuit” settlement, the author of TNR’s new politics newsletter explains how Democrats are exploiting these deepening Trump-GOP schisms.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the August 3 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Late Sunday, Todd Blanche finally confirmed in writing that the slush fund is officially dead.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

Donald Trump just unleashed two angry, explosive rants at members of his own party, and they were really revealing. It’s clear that Trump is extremely sensitive to perceptions that he’s losing control over the GOP, because he fears it makes him look weak.

And in response to all this, one GOP senator dropped a bomb, making a surprising revelation.

So here’s a big question: Can Democrats be doing more to exploit these schisms, and more to inflict pain on the GOP over Trump’s cratering public standing?

New Republic staff writer Emma Janssen has a new piece reporting on how that might happen. She’s the author of TNR’s new newsletter on D.C. politics, The Blue Book, which you should subscribe to right away. Emma, good to have you on.

Emma Janssen: Hi, Greg. Thank you so much for having me. I am a big fan of the podcast, and I’m glad I’m here.

Sargent: Thanks so much. OK, so Trump is in a fury with Senator John Cornyn and several others who are holding up Todd Blanche’s nomination to officially become attorney general.

The sticking point is that Blanche created this billion-dollar fund as a settlement of Trump’s corrupt fake lawsuit against the IRS, which is supposed to give money to supposed victims of government weaponization and gives Trump and his family tax immunity. These senators want this thing dead for good. Emma, can you just explain this situation and why it’s so important?

Janssen: Senator John Cornyn, as well as Senator Thom Tillis, are two crucial votes for pushing forward Todd Blanche as the nominee for attorney general. And they’ve been so far holding out and saying that they won’t vote for Todd Blanche because of this anti-weaponization fund, like you mentioned.

The idea behind this fund is very corrupt. It’s to provide financial benefit to January Sixers. And these two Republican senators have drawn a red line and say that unless they have it in writing that this fund will not move forward and that it’s dead, they cannot vote for Todd Blanche.

Sargent: I mean, this thing is a slush fund, right, Emma? All it is is just this huge pile of money that Trump can just hand out to his insurrectionist supporters and to other supporters if he wants. The way it was configured was extraordinarily corrupt. It gave him lots of backdoor control over it. And then the tax shield is even worse. And so these senators are actually taking something of a principled stand here, right?

Janssen: They definitely are, kind of shockingly. There are other things about Blanche that they have overlooked and say that his actions, for example, on the Epstein files have not been great, but they’re willing to sort of overlook that. This slush fund, however, is not something that they will let happen and vote for Blanche.

Sargent: So Trump unleashed this wild tirade on Truth Social targeting Cornyn. Trump absurdly claimed that this fund is necessary to reward all the January Sixers, who he painted as victims and martyrs. Then Trump tore into Cornyn and gloated over his endorsement of Ken Paxton, who defeated Cornyn in the Texas GOP primary.

Trump said this: “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide presidential win, so did John Cornyn until he lost his election to an opponent that I endorsed. Todd Blanche, a good man, should be immediately approved as U.S. Attorney General.”

It was an epic screed, and I think what Trump meant is that millions of people agree that all this money should be handed to January Sixers. But of course, there’s no way that’s true. Emma, what did you make of all that?

Janssen: I think it’s the latest example of how Trump really uses primary elections as a way to force Republicans to comply with his agenda. As he mentioned in that Truth Social post, he endorsed Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, and Cornyn is now leaving the Senate.

Of course, that has sort of backfired on him in this situation, now that Cornyn seems to be standing up and asserting a little more independence from Trump’s agenda. But........

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