Donald Trump has been forced to beg his Republican foes for a helping hand as he scrambles to rescue his former personal lawyer’s nomination as attorney general.
The White House has found itself courting GOP Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn—both vilified by the president as disloyal—as they hold off on supporting Todd Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Politico reports.
A single Republican “no” vote on the committee could sink Blanche’s nomination.
Tillis, 65, and Cornyn, 74, both confirmed the White House’s outreach in interviews with Politico on Capitol Hill Monday evening, while a White House official told the outlet that “the Administration continues to have active conversations with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has repeatedly insulted both senators, blasting Tillis as a “loser” and a “quitter,” while dismissing Cornyn as “hopeless.”
The 80-year-old president effectively ended Cornyn’s Senate career when he endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Cornyn in Texas’s Republican primary, leading Paxton to trounce him.
Both Tillis and Cornyn have been wary of Blanche, the acting attorney general, over his role in signing off on the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” taxpayer slush fund to compensate Trump’s allies and agreeing to give the Trump family immunity from tax investigations.
“Those are the issues we’re continuing to discuss with the administration to see whether we can get a modification of the settlement agreement,” Cornyn told Politico.
Asked whether he could secure concessions from Blanche, who had previously resisted amending the agreement he entered into on Trump’s behalf, Cornyn replied, “Well, does he want to get confirmed or not?”
In response to bipartisan outrage over money from the fund potentially going to rioters who violently attacked the police on Jan. 6, the Justice Department has said the fund would not move forward.
But Blanche has stopped short of putting the commitment in writing, prompting Cornyn to grill him on the issue during his confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee last week.
Tillis told Politico that he has been encouraged by the Justice Department’s efforts to work with his staff to address his concerns, saying, “I know my staff have been in touch, almost, probably daily.”
Blanche acquiesced to Tillis’s demand that he meet with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims last week, but many of the women later said the meeting only deepened their frustration.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with us, and it had everything to do with Blanche checking a box so that he can get a promotion,” survivor Liz Stein told the hosts of MS NOW’s The Weeknight last week.
“I don’t think we had high expectations going into this meeting,” Stein added, “but I didn’t expect to walk out of the meeting feeling the way we feel right now. It was demoralizing.”
She added that Blanche took no accountability for the botched redaction system that saw some victims’ names released in the Epstein files.
Politico reported Tillis said he would “like to understand what, if any, steps were taken for opening FBI investigations—whether it was a request or whether it was an acceptance to do it,” in regards to Blanche’s plans to bring Epstein’s co-conspirators to justice.
The publication quoted an anonymous source linked to the nomination process who said Tillis will wind up voting to support Blanche, saying, “Tillis, we think, is squared away.”
