Trump’s attorney general pick says he has reached deal with senators after standoff – US politics live

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Acting US attorney general Todd Blanche issued a formal order late on Sunday terminating Donald Trump’s $1.8bn “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate his political allies.

The move follows weeks of negotiations with two Republican senators who were blocking his nomination to become attorney general.

While Blanche has repeatedly said publicly that the fund was dead, the justice department had resisted formally confirming that in writing. That had drawn concern from lawmakers that it could be revived in some form, especially after Trump expressed continued support for the idea.

A spokesperson for Texas Senator John Cornyn, one of the senators holding up Blanche’s nomination, confirmed the agreement. The other GOP senator, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, did not have immediate comment.

The announcement comes ahead of a Senate judiciary committee vote on Blanche, which is scheduled for Tuesday.

“My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions,” Blanche said in a post on X. “We have enjoyed good faith discussions, and as a result issue the following order.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a news conference on unaccompanied children at the Justice Department, June 11, 2026, in Washington.

The order says that “although the acting attorney general has repeatedly advised Congress through testimony, including under oath, as well as in written responses, that the Fund is not moving forward, and the Department has repeatedly represented to district courts that the Fund is not moving forward, today’s Order officially rescinds the May 18, 2026 Order.”

The document released by Blanche on Sunday night also limits the scope of another provision of the settlement that provided broad immunity for Trump and members of his family from tax audits. It clarifies that the tax audit immunity agreement “applies only retroactively” to claims open at the time of the settlement and does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings.

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In other developments:

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, on Sunday told American parents that they should get their children vaccinated against measles, as the surge in infections has reached numbers not seen in the past 35 years. Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, on Sunday told American parents that they should get their children vaccinated against measles, as the surge in infections has reached numbers not seen in the past 35 years.

Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.

His remark came as the incidence of measles crossed a milestone – the US has now officially recorded 2,371 confirmed infections so far this year, surpassing the total tally in 2025 of 2,289.

Taken together, the past two years have seen more measles infections in the US than the rest of the 21st century combined. The last time a greater number of measles cases were recorded in a single year was in 1991.

Kennedy’s statement was extracted from him by Dana Bash, CNN’s host, who invited him to use his “bully pulpit” to talk directly to parents as the new school year approached. She urged him to tell families that they should vaccinate for measles “because it is safe and it will help them save their children’s lives”.

The pastor of a historically Black church on St Louis’s north side, Rodrick Burton has watched with bewilderment as the congressional race in his district has drawn national attention not about the bloodshed in his community, but rather in Gaza.

“As a pastor who’s had eight members murdered, violence over there is terrible,” Burton said of the conflict in the Middle East.

“We have to deal with the problems right in our metropolitan area,” Burton added. “While there’s kinship and stuff … you’re talking about blood overseas, blood on the TV. We got blood right here in our metropolitan area.”

In Tuesday’s Democratic congressional primary, voters in Missouri’s deep-blue first congressional district will decide whether to give pro-Israel incumbent Wesley Bell a second term, or replace him with Cori Bush, a former progressive congresswoman who accuses Israel of perpetrating genocide in Gaza. Along with a heated primary in Michigan, the contest has become a proxy battle over the Democratic party’s role in supporting Israel’s military before the November midterm elections, which will determine which party holds the majority in both chambers of Congress.

After losing to Bell two years ago, Bush is vying for her seat back, and a Super Pac linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has so far spent more than $3m to try to keep her out.