'Really A World Record In Self-Dealing': Jeff Merkley Rips Trump For $1.8 Billion Weaponization Fund

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Thank you. Senator Merkley.

[00:00:04]This battle over the reconciliation bill is all about costs, chaos, and corruption. Costs. $70 billion and not a penny going to healthcare, housing, education, helping people with the price of gas at the pump, nothing that American families are suffering from. $70 billion and let's talk about well, let's talk about chaos.

[00:00:35]Not a single common-sense reform for ICE or CBP who have been acting like secret police terrorizing communities across this country.

[00:00:46]And then corruption.

[00:00:49]Well, certainly the billion dollars for a ballroom boondoggle worthy of Louis the 14th, but totally inappropriate in a democratic republic.

[00:01:02]That's certainly corruption.

[00:01:05]But this settlement in which Trump sues his own administration and his former defense lawyer serving as acting attorney general proceeds to say, "I know what. I'll give you $1.8 billion to hand out to whomever you want."

[00:01:26]I mean, that is really a world record in self-dealing.

[00:01:32]Think about any other country in the world where you've read about corruption. Have you read about a president giving himself $1.8 billion to hand out to his friends?

[00:01:41]I mean, all of this finally appears to be too much for our colleagues across the aisle.

[00:01:48]We are hoping that they will join us in tackling the issues that families face across this country.

[00:01:55]Join us in tackling the misbehavior of ICE and CBP and join us in taking on this profound level of corruption that has known no equal in our entire two centuries plus of history and probably no equal anywhere in the world.