Trump rails against CNN when asked about $1.776B fund

As you're about to hear in his answer here, the president seemed clearly irritated when he was asked earlier today why his administration says it is not moving forward with that $1 .8 billion anti -weaponization fund, as they have called it.And just to note, as you're about to listen to this, this first exchange actually occurred before I had yet to ask the president a question.

Can you explain why you decided to drop the anti -weaponization fund?

So I love it.I think it's so important.People were, this is a victim right here, but not only a victim, he was also a student of it.What happened to great people, great American people, the way they were victimized, the way they were savaged.You have suicides.They killed themselves.

They went bankrupt.They were weaponized by the Biden administration, by a bunch of thugs, including Obama people, And like nobody's probably ever been.I mean, I can think of maybe two instances in this country where they've had it to somewhere that extent.I'm not even sure if it was so much.They were put in jail for long periods of time.They were accused of things that never happened.

They had prosecutors that were radical lunatics and their lives were destroyed.And frankly, we had a lawsuit that against us on the, you know, on the weaponization.where the judge, a radical left judge, ruled against it.And we'll see how that all works out.But a radical left judge ruled against it.But these people, their lives have been destroyed.

Their families have been destroyed.Many of them.I'm not just talking about a few people.Many of them.I'm one of them.Look, they raided my house, Mar -a -Lago.

That never happened.Nobody ever thought of anything like that.It turned out that it was a total fake.Everything about it was fake and corrupt.We have all the information.here.

The good advantage to sitting here is we can get information that you wouldn't get by what we have and what we are going to be showing over the coming weeks and months.You're not even going to believe.Some of you will believe it, like CNN will believe it because they knew what was going on.They're crooked as hell.CNN is a very corrupt organization, but with a corrupt reporter standing right there, never smiles.You never see a young.

Beautiful woman, never smiles.I never see a smile off her face.I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like she has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes, because we do things that everybody wanted.And then we win our election in a massive landslide.We win 87 percent of the counties in this country.Nobody's ever heard of a thing like that.

And that's because we're doing the right job.And we took a detour down to Iran because we can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon under any circumstances.We can't let that happen.So the reporters should be happy.They shouldn't be unhappy.They should be very happy.

Because you know what we're doing?We're saving our country.

Excuse me, Mr. President.Just to clarify on what you were asked earlier, is the $1 .8 billion DOJ fund dead or is it on hold?

I'd have to ask the lawyers.I don't know.I know one thing, the weaponization fund.

But what's your decision on that?

Are you talking about the weaponization fund?Yeah, what's your decision?As far as I'm concerned was a beautiful thing.It was something I was I didn't make it but I was I heard that I thought that was the greatest thing because People like you have abused our people so badly the fake news like CNN like the New York Times and like others Have abused our people so badly and you should be ashamed of yourself.You used to be a conservative She was a conservative from Alabama.Can you believe it?

I'm that were destroyed.Their families have been destroyed.Many suicides.They committed suicide.People that went there to with love.They went there with love.

You know, when I made that speech early in the day, a tremendous crowd.I hate to say because they'll say, oh, I was wrong on the number.But I believe it's the largest crowd I've ever spoken to by twice.The biggest crowd, I think, bigger than the inaugurations, bigger than anything.And there was so much love.and and friendship.

It was the most amazing thing.People were crying attacks aside.

The news there is the president defending this $1 .8 billion fund while pushing questions about whether or not the door is permanently shut on it to the off to the attorneys in his administration.He himself never said whether or not it could potentially move forward.The fact that the administration has not done so and hasn't done so in writing, despite the fund being actually announced in writing, has not gone far enough for some Republican members of Congress, who are now issuing fresh calls to officially kill the fund themselves.In fact, the unprecedented use of taxpayer money has become so politically toxic that sources say many in the GOP were glad to see the issue taken off the table by Todd Blanch.Or so they thought.A brief reminder of what we heard from the acting attorney general on Capitol Hill.

Look, we're not moving forward with the fund.We are not moving forward with the fund, period.We are not moving forward with the fund.

Not moving forward ever.

Correct.We're not moving forward with the fund.We're not moving forward with the fund.We're not moving forward.with the fund.We're not moving forward with the fund.

Now, before the president's answers today inside the Oval Office, we heard from the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, who sounded upbeat and optimistic.About an hour, actually, before the president spoke to reporters today, the Senate had voted to move forward on a critical first step on immigration funding for his enforcement and crackdown.It had been held up over this exact controversy.And it's perhaps the last major legislative win that the president will get before the midterm elections, which are exactly five months from today.But what the president told me today will now seem to hang over a marathon voting session that is set to start tomorrow.Republican leaders have been spending the night trying to call members who refuse to back that plan or vote for it until they know for sure that this $1 .8 billion fund from the DOJ is dead.

Just listen to two Republican senators today before you heard the president crack that door back open.

I think even DOJ knows that this was a bad idea.And what we need to do is provide finality.We've got to either eliminate it, streamline it, guardrail it.It can't go in its current form.And if that's the only choice we should have, we should eradicate it.

In general, I support what Senator Tillis is trying to do to make sure that the weaponization fund is not just mostly dead, that it's truly dead.I want to make sure it's not mostly dead.I want to make sure it's completely dead.

Our CNN anchor and our chief congressional correspondent, Monte Raju, joins me now.And obviously, not having this in writing or not, they don't seem to think, these Republicans, which was the point of our questioning to the president today, they don't seem to think the administration has been definitive enough.

Yeah, and this is just another example where Republicans want to pull their hair out on Capitol Hill.A perfectly laid plan, so they thought, until Trump comes out and says something else and completely cuts their legs from underneath them.I mean, remember,right before Memorial Day, before the Memorial Day recess, when Congress left town for a week, they were going to pass $70 billion in new funding for related immigration enforcement priorities for this president.And then they dropped the this $1 .8 billion weaponization fund.That blew everything up because Republicans wanted to rein it in.

They didn't know how to rein it in.And they knew if they added language to this bill, it would completely disrupt derail its chances of becoming law, because Trump would ultimately veto it.So then Blanche says what he says.John Thune is happy.They can move forward with this bill.And now he says to you, and he's making very clear that he's not on the same page as Todd Blanche.

And now this vote, critical vote, is happening tomorrow over this bill.I just want you to listen to what some of these members told me today when I asked them about the president making it very clear that, in his mind, this is not a dead issue.

The president said that today, he would not rule out this fund moving forward again.Well, I am.

I'm ruling it out.

Does that mean that you're going to still push ahead and try to kill it?Well, of course.But to answer your question about the weaponization fund, this issue's not dead.It's not over.We have to fix the law.I feel very strongly about that.

Should he say the weaponization fund is dead?

Should I say that?

Should he say that?

I think you heard from the acting attorney general yesterday.

Does that concern you, despite what Tom Blank said yesterday?

It's kind of surprising based on what Tom Blank said yesterday.

That's really the question here and the concern that a lot of Republicans have because if you listen to what the president said, If he had said what Tom Blanche said, then it would have been very easy to vote against some of these amendments tomorrow when they come to the Senate floor.But now that the president's keeping it open, it's going to put a lot of pressure on some of these key swing votes.You already heard Tom Tillis and Bill Cassidy.That's two Republicans.Can they get two more?Probably.

Susan Collins, in a very difficult race, will have a very hard time voting against an amendment.amendment backed by Tom Tillis and Bill Cassidy to rein this in, as will others, like Lisa Murkowski, who has been critical.Mitch McConnell, also been critical.But the one big thing to watch for tomorrow is that because of the peculiarities of the Senate's rules, it's possible that some of these may have to require 60 votes to be adopted in the 53 -47 Senate.It's unlikely to get 60 votes, but it's possible some of these could be adopted by a simple majority.51 votes, that's where it can be very difficult for the president.

Some of these measures could get adopted and ultimately end up and put the president in a difficult spot where he faces, has to decide whether to sign a bill that includes some of these provisions.Because even in the House, you heard Brian Fitzpatrick there telling me tonight, he's going to push for this in the House with that narrow Republican majority in the House.Perhaps he can get that language out of there, putting the president in a difficult position all by his own making.