00:00President Trump has threatened to pull the nomination of his pick to lead the Justice
00:03Department. His threat came after the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed a vote on acting
00:08Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination after two Republican lame duck senators,
00:12John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, refused to move forward.
00:16The reason they hit the brakes on the process is because they're demanding written guarantees
00:21that a controversial $1.8 billion weaponization fund is gone for good. Without that, no vote.
00:27So President Trump threatened to pull Blanche's nomination and just wait them out until a new
00:31Senate convenes after the midterms. For more, let's bring in The New York Post's politics reporter,
00:36Ryan King. This has been a problem for Senate Republicans for weeks, and it has loomed large
00:42over President Trump's nomination of Todd Blanche to be the full-fledged Attorney General of the
00:47United States. Blanche, of course, is the acting Attorney General right now. And we had seen a
00:54big fight that happened during a Senate Republican lunch a few weeks ago over this issue. And in
01:01response, Blanche announced that the weaponization fund is going away and that it's over, it's not
01:08happening. But we've seen some Senate Republicans, particularly Senators John Cornyn and Tom Tillis,
01:14expressed concerns that it could potentially be revived in the future, basically because President
01:20Trump was a party on that deal. And the concern is that Trump could sue or move to try to
01:27revive it.
01:28And they basically want a court order to permanently end the weaponization fund and ensure that it can't
01:34be brought back. And so this has been a big sticking point for Tillis and Cornyn in particular
01:41regarding Blanche's nomination. And what we saw on Thursday was President Trump lash out at Cornyn
01:49and Tillis. And Trump suggested that he might just drop Blanche's nomination for the Attorney General
01:54position until after the midterms when a new Senate comes in next year. Of course, that's pretty risky.
02:03President Trump could wind up being in a worse position next year, trying to get Blanche through if it
02:09comes to that.
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