President Trump doesn’t let political debts go unpaid, and he doesn’t let political grudges go unaddressed either.
Senator John Cornyn has been making life difficult for one of Trump’s key nominees, and the President finally said enough.
And now Trump has gone scorched earth on Cornyn in a Truth Social post that names names and lays the blame right at the senator’s feet.
The Fight Over Todd Blanche’s Confirmation
President Trump lashed out at former ally Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), attacking the lawmaker for stalling acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to permanently lead the Justice Department.
Cornyn is one of two Republican senators who have prevented Blanche’s nomination from advancing through the Senate Judiciary Committee, with opposition centered on the president’s controversial $1.776 billion compensation fund for January 6 defendants prosecuted under the Biden administration.
The people that fund was designed to help are the same Americans who watched their lives get dismantled by a Justice Department that treated political opposition like a criminal enterprise. Trump has been consistent about wanting them made whole.
Cornyn and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) demanded clear written guarantees that a proposed $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is permanently dead and that tax audit immunity for Trump and his family covers only existing audits rather than future ones or a wider circle of people.
Cornyn is holding up Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general by refusing to support a Senate Judiciary Committee vote until the Justice Department provides written modifications to a settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, according to AP News.
Cornyn told reporters recently, “I thought we were pretty close to landing the plane last night, but this morning there’s been some more complications. I think if this were just between me and Todd Blanche, we would have worked this out. But apparently he’s getting some pushback from higher-ups at the White House. I don’t know who, but this doesn’t need to be this hard.”
That’s a curious way to frame it. Cornyn positioned himself as the reasonable adult in the room, just trying to get to yes. But Trump read it differently.
Trump Calls Out the Real Motivation
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called ‘Fund,’ which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate. Perhaps there has never been a group of people treated so badly in our Nation’s history.”
Trump continued: “I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined! Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”
Trump closed his post by writing: “Todd Blanche, a good man, should be immediately approved as U.S. Attorney General. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Cornyn pushed back fast. “I think that’s a convenient excuse for not cooperating with the judiciary committee’s appropriate role in the confirmation,” Cornyn told reporters.
Convenient excuse. That’s the kind of thing you say when you want to sound principled without having to actually prove it.
In the Oval Office, Trump told reporters, “Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him.” He went on to call Blanche “outstanding.”
How the Primary Snub Set All of This in Motion
Up until recently, Trump had stayed mum on the Texas Senate primary, where Cornyn ran for a fifth term against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Then, just days before a runoff between the two Republicans, Trump endorsed Paxton, dooming Cornyn’s reelection bid.
Cornyn is bitter that the president endorsed Ken Paxton, Cornyn’s opponent in the Texas Senate primary race. Paxton won and Cornyn is determined to be a thorn in the president’s side until the bitter end. One of the ways he’s doing that is by stalling the nomination of Todd Blanche to be the next Attorney General.
Due to the makeup of the Senate, and the fact that no Democrat will support Blanche, all Republicans must vote for Blanche in order for him to be confirmed — and that’s exactly what has made Cornyn power-mad of late.
That math is brutal and Cornyn knows it. One Republican senator can hold the whole thing up, and right now that senator is him.
The president suggested he might withdraw Blanche’s nomination until Cornyn and Tillis are out of office, as both are leaving the Senate in January when their terms end. That’s a nuclear option, and it carries real risks. Such a move could backfire on Trump if Democrats win back the Senate or even eat into the GOP’s already slim majority.
So Trump is stuck fighting a senator who has nothing left to lose electorally and everything to gain personally by making the White House sweat.
What This Means Going Forward
The deeper problem here isn’t really about the fund or the IRS settlement language. It’s about what happens when a president endorses against an incumbent senator from his own party and that senator still has months left in office.
Cornyn isn’t running again. He doesn’t need Trump’s blessing for anything. And he’s got just enough leverage in the Senate math to make himself a genuine obstacle. That’s a combination that tends to produce exactly the kind of standoff playing out right now.
Since the primary, Cornyn has issued covert and overt criticism against the president and has tried to stymie parts of Trump’s agenda. The Blanche nomination fight is the most visible example, but it probably isn’t the last one.
And what about Todd Blanche himself? He’s a capable attorney who served Trump through some of the most politically charged legal proceedings in recent memory. He deserves a straight up-or-down vote, not to become a pawn in a grudge match between the White House and a lame-duck senator from Texas.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) could hold senators back from their break to confirm Blanche, but that assumes a speedy resolution, and that Trump wants a resolution.
Whether the two sides find a way to close the gap on the written language Cornyn wants, or whether this drags past the Senate’s scheduled break, the political damage from the standoff is already done. Trump’s base watched a Republican senator use procedural leverage to block one of the President’s nominees over what Trump says is naked personal payback.
That’s not a good look for anyone trying to argue the GOP caucus is unified behind the America First agenda.
The voters who sent Trump back to Washington in a landslide didn’t do it so outgoing senators with bruised egos could slow-walk the people’s business on their way out the door.
Sources: Mediaite, Townhall, RedState, Fox News, The Hill, MS Now
