EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
It came from the courts, from Capitol Hill and even from within the GOP this week – pushback to President Trump’s agenda. Joining me now is NPR senior contributor Ron Elving. Good morning, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Eyder.
PERALTA: So let’s start with Congress and the House, where there were a couple of notable votes involving foreign policy.
ELVING: Yes. And in the House, where Trump’s grip has been tightest – but this week, four members of the Republican majority crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats and invoke the War Powers Act on Iran. This is legislation that’s been on the books since the wind-down from the Vietnam War, and it requires congressional approval after an overseas deployment has lasted 60 days. We’re way past that with the war on Iran. But past efforts to invoke the act have fallen short. This time, with the margin of majority down to the fingers of one hand, the defection of four Republicans was enough. Now we’ll see if the Senate follows through.
The House also this week voted to fund another $9.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion. Trump wants a free hand to broker some sort of deal between those countries, so he was not in favor of this package of U.S. aid, and it was a shock when 18 Republicans in the House joined in approving it. And over on the Senate side, Republican votes were very important in helping the Democrats stop a billion-dollar commitment to Trump’s grand ballroom project.
PERALTA: There was also a lot of tension in the Senate among Republicans over the president’s antiweaponization fund and over Trump’s bid to replace Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. Tell us more about that.
ELVING: Yes. Senators have signaled major objections to that $1.8 billion fund. Trump wanted this to compensate people who say they were prosecuted unjustly in the past for political activities, including the January 6 riot at the Capitol that disrupted that year’s official tally of the presidential election results. Now, some Republican senators, especially those on the ballot in November, balked at the idea of the fund. And that threatened to stall passage of the immigration enforcement appropriation.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche then said the fund idea would be dropped, dead letter. And early yesterday morning, the Senate then finally approved the money for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. Democrats tried to get an explicit piece of legislation saying no one would get fund money, but they could not peel off enough Republicans for that. So the fund still exists as an idea, at least, and Trump still says he likes it. But it seems far less likely to happen.
Also meeting headwinds, as you say on the Hill, is the idea of Bill Pulte as the next director of national intelligence. Several Republicans had expressed some dismay at that particular idea. Pulte is a longtime Trump friend. He now heads federal housing finance programs, but he has no background in intelligence work or spycraft. Now, Trump has stressed that Pulte would only have the job temporarily, pending an actual permanent nominee. That way, he would not need Senate confirmation, but he might be able to make changes that Trump would like to see.
PERALTA: Now to the courts. Yesterday, a federal judge struck down a Trump administration immigration policy that affected 39 counties. What’s the scope of this ruling?
ELVING: The judge did a thorough job of seeking out all the policies of the administration affecting refugees who seek asylum from those 39 countries, and also a thorough job of striking down those policies as discriminatory against Muslims on the basis of their faith. Also this week, a panel of federal appeals court judges met to consider a challenge to Trump’s plans for that billion-dollar ballroom we mentioned. That initially appeared that at least two of the three judges were inclined to back the challenge and at least modify that project.
PERALTA: There was also a ruling over President Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center. His name is supposed to come off the building by June 12, but there’s more to this ruling, isn’t there?
ELVING: Yes. This is symbolic, perhaps. But the implications of it are important to those who hope to nullify much of Trump’s time in office by mobilizing the other branches of the government against his agenda now, and particularly his agenda of remaking and rebranding the Washington landscape not just in terms of policy, but in the monuments on the Mall as well.
ELVING: Thank you, Eyder. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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