Trump admin abandons Anti-Weaponization Fund after headwinds mount | The Excerpt

On the Tuesday, June 2, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: In a surprise move, the Trump administration announced that it was retreating from a $1.776 billion-dollar Anti-Weaponization Fund that would have been established as part of a settlement President Donald Trump made with the IRS over leaked tax returns. Prior to this breaking news, we spoke with USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi about the dramatic legal and political headwinds the Trump administration was facing.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

Is the Trump administration's anti-weaponization fund legal? Is it ethical? The $1.8 billion fund would've been established as part of a settlement President Donald Trump made with the IRS regarding leaked tax returns during his first administration. One big sticking point with lawmakers was that the fund could have been used to compensate people who believe they'd been unjustly targeted by the Biden administration's Justice Department, including people involved in the January 6th attack on the Capitol. One court put the fund on hold last week while a second reopened the IRS case for further scrutiny. Meanwhile, pushback from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers mushroomed. USA TODAY's sources have confirmed, as of early Monday evening, the Trump administration will abandon its fight to establish the fund. What led to this dramatic change of heart?

Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. We spoke before this news broke with USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi about the dramatic legal and political headwinds the Trump administration was facing. Here's our earlier conversation.

Aysha, thank you so much for coming on.

Aysha Bagchi:

Thank you, Dana. I'm happy to be here.

Dana Taylor:

Let's start with the first ruling that came down on Friday, putting the brakes on the fund. What did that judge rule?

Aysha Bagchi:

It's a very kind of temporary ruling. It's not that the judge looked at the substance of the litigation in that case. Basically, the judge said that I need more time because there are some complicated issues going on here. I want to hear from the government, what the government has to say about the lawfulness of the so called anti-weaponization fund, and whether the people bringing the lawsuit in that case can actually sue the government. And so the government said, "I don't want you moving forward with this fund and disspursing assets, that sort of thing, things that wouldn't be easily reversible until I've heard some more briefing about whether I should do something more long-term to stop the fund from going forward." So it's sort of procedural, but it does halt the government from going forward right now.

Dana Taylor:

A second blow to the fund came on Friday from a federal judge in Miami. What happened there?

Aysha Bagchi:

This is the actual lawsuit that the president filed against the IRS. The judge in that case had closed the case after the government and lawyers for President Trump said that they had reached a settlement and said that they didn't need any judicial approval to do that. The judge had closed the case, but after that, as you mentioned in your intro, there were a few dozen former federal judges who wrote into the court saying basically, "We think you should reopen this case. We think that potentially there was a fraud committed against the court, that you were deceived in the way that you were told to close the case because you didn't know about the arrangement that was taking place between the DOJ and the president himself over how to handle his lawsuit and basically the grounds for creating the so called anti-weaponization fund." And the judge said, "Yes, I'm going to reopen this case to look into these allegations that I shouldn't have closed it in the first place, that the Justice Department wasn't transparent with me about what was going on here."

And the former federal judges in that case pointed to the fact that there are other lawsuits that they say are similar and the DOJ handled differently to basically say there's a sort of collusion going on between the president and the DOJ about how to handle a lawsuit, and it's all designed to create an outcome that he wanted independent of his lawsuit.

Dana Taylor:

Aysha, these rulings are a huge blow to the Trump administration, but the blow-back isn't just coming from the courts. Even Republicans have expressed serious concerns about the fund. What are they saying?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. Senate Republicans in particular seem to be really concerned about the lack of parameters around this fund. They've refused to provide a spending bill to finance immigration enforcement by the Trump administration, saying that they want to work out something with the DOJ first about this fund and there are various proposals around that. That could be putting explicit limitations on what the fund could go to. There are many Senate Republicans who are concerned in particular about funds going to people who were actually convicted of assaulting Capitol police officers during the attack on the Capitol on January 6th of 2021. And they've thought about other measures. Maybe it shouldn't be this group of five commissioners who are chosen by Trump's attorney general. The acting attorney general right now is Todd Blanche that's a former personal lawyer to the president. They say maybe the rule should be a bit different about how these commissioners are selected, or maybe a judge should be involved in any disbursement of these funds to evaluate who are the people who really should be getting the funds in the first place. They have different ideas, and potentially even scrapping the fund altogether.

But right now they've created a standoff with the Trump administration, withholding money for things that the Trump administration wants, saying that they want some more clarity and potentially limits on what happens with this fund before they're ready to work with the administration.

Dana Taylor:

Even former Vice President Mike Pence weighed in on this. What did he say?

Aysha Bagchi:

Mike Pence said he too is concerned about the fund. In particular, he doesn't think that money should be going to people who assaulted police officers on January 6th. He said that there are other ways for the government to engage in settlements with people who bring legitimate lawsuits saying that they've been mistreated by the government, but he thinks the fund itself should just be scrapped. It's not really necessary. He has commented on the idea that he thinks that the Republican Party, when it comes to these sorts of issues, has lost its way. So he would like to see the fund go away and other mechanisms created for people who he thinks might have some legitimate claims to bring against the government.

Dana Taylor:

Well, you mentioned the Capitol Police officers. How have they responded to this fund? What have they said?

Aysha Bagchi:

There are some Capitol police officers who have actually brought a lawsuit themselves. This is the type of legal settlement that has just sparked an array of lawsuits, bipartisan efforts resisting the fund. There's a lot of concern about this fund across different constituencies. That includes Capitol police officers who were assaulted on January 6th and they say that the fund shouldn't be able to go forward. They're especially concerned about people convicted of crimes on January 6th, and they say that they're themselves harmed by the fund. That's why they think that they can sue because they've already faced harassment, even they say death threats just for speaking out against what happened on January 6th. And they say that if the fund goes forward, it's going to embolden those people who have already been harassing police officers for speaking out about what happened on that date. It's going to make the situation worse, the harassment that they face worse. Basically that it's another effort to rewrite the history of what happened on January 6th and undermine that kind of public condemnation that was bipartisan from Congress, from many of our institutions about efforts on that day to halt the peaceful transition of power between presidents.

Dana Taylor:

Democrats aren't missing the opportunity to chime in on the fund either. What's the latest there?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. There are a number of Democrats who are calling for the Inspector General of the Justice Department, that's basically a person who is there to inspect what's happening at the DOJ and make sure that things are happening properly, to look into what happened here. Senator Chuck Schumer also said, he's the Senate minority leader leading Democrats in the Senate, he said that the Democrats and the Senate are going to pursue options to stop the fund from happening. That includes in the Senate, legislative mechanisms, introducing amendments having to do with the fund, doing other things to force Republicans to the floor, addressing this issue, and then potential legal avenues to also stop the fund from going forward. So Democrats are very unified on attempting to stop this fund from proceeding.

Dana Taylor:

California Governor Gavin Newsom has also weighed in on the possibility of convicted January 6th insurrectionists receiving payouts from the fund. Let's give a listen.

Gavin Newsom:

One thing that I think we're going to try to do with your support is tax 100%. Anyone from California that receives any of those funds, we want to tax 100% of those proceeds, and that's an action the state of California can take. It's an action we look forward to taking.

Dana Taylor:

Aysha, does Newsom have any influence here and could other Democratic governors perhaps follow suit?

Aysha Bagchi:

It's an interesting approach. Newsom says that he can go forward with this as a way to prevent California residents from receiving these funds. And there are similar proposals going on in New York and New Jersey. So it does look like there are some states that might try to prevent people from getting these sorts of assets. It's not clear what kind of legal questions could arise with that. But again, that will be limited to the states that choose to pursue this kind of avenue to prevent people from getting funds.

It's notable that the leader of the Proud Boys during the January 6th insurrection, Enrique Tarrio, has said that he plans to seek millions of dollars from the fund. He's not a resident of one of these states, so it's not clear that this type of initiative would prevent someone like that from receiving funds. He was convicted of seditious conspiracy for acts related to the January 6th attack and sentenced to 22 years in prison. He has now been pardoned. So this would be another way in which the history around what he did and what happened with him could be undone if he really is able to receive money from the government for that prosecution.

Dana Taylor:

Aysha Bagchi is a Justice Department correspondent for USA TODAY. Aysha, thank you so much for breaking this down for us.

Aysha Bagchi:

Sure, Dana. I'm happy to be here.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Be sure to follow The Excerpt so tomorrow's story is ready when you are.