Senate Republicans had already grown vocal in their opposition to President Donald Trump’s unprecedented $1.8 billion fund to compensate alleged victims of Justice Department “weaponization” during the Biden years. After a nearly two-hour meeting Thursday with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that participants described as “incredibly hostile,” their opposition hardened — and the reasons why became clearer.

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) spoke with CNN’s Manu Raju on Thursday, and denounced the legislative strategy behind the $1.8 billion fund — but not the fund itself.

“Ron Johnson told me the Trump administration should have focused on getting ICE/CBP bill passed and the decision to unveil $1.8B fund now (when they’re trying to pass the bill) was a giant mistake,” Raju reported.

“Somebody described it as a galactic blunder, and I think that’s probably true,” Johnson told the CNN anchor.

“Similar sentiment among GOP leadership,” the Washington Examiner’s Ramsey Touchberry added, “who feel [the] situation is a mess of the admin’s own making and Blanche meeting/WH guidance on anti-weaponization fund made it worse, per source.”

“Lots of frustration among Senate Republicans over the timing of the anti-weaponization fund — and the fund itself,” the Washington Post’s Riley Beggin noted. “One GOP aide told me about half of Senate Rs don’t like it.”

Mediaite notes that “NOTUS’s Reese Gorman reported on the Republicans not being ‘happy’ with the Trump administration over the fund, which critics are slamming as a massive ‘slush fund’ to pay Trump allies and donors.”

“They have f—— this up on too many levels to count,” a senior GOP Senate aide told Gorman, Mediaite reports. “The only thing more toxic than demanding taxpayers foot the bill for a billion-dollar ballroom is demanding taxpayers give billions of dollars to J6 rioters.”

Axios adds that U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told reporters that the $1.8 billion fund was dropped like “a bomb in the middle of a pretty well planned out reconciliation bill.”

Politico reported Thursday that Blanche had struggled “to quash GOP concerns” surrounding the fund. “Blanche met privately with Senate Republicans as the administration and GOP leaders tried to defuse the controversy over the fund.”

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Thursday’s opening of a new U.S. consulate in Greenland‘s capital city of Nuuk did not go well for the Americans, as protesters swamped the street, according to video posted by Orla Joelsen, a native Greenlander and prison official in Nuuk.

“Go home USA!” participants could be heard chanting.

At least one protester held up a sign that read, “Greenland is not for sale!”

It’s been a difficult week for Americans in Nuuk.

The Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said he would not attend Thursday’s opening of the new consulate.

“We haven’t made a decision in principle, but I won’t participate,” the prime minister told the Greenlandic news outlet Sermitsiaq, according to a Google translation.

President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry, touched down in Nuuk on Sunday, saying he arrived “simply to build relationships,” and to “see if there are opportunities” to expand them.

His appeal to several young Greenlanders, free chocolate chip cookies if they traveled to visit him, was met with a poor response.

“If you come to Louisiana,” Governor Landry said, “and you come to the governor’s mansion — all the chocolate chip cookies you can eat.”

But Prime Minister Nielsen on Monday said Greenland would not become part of the U.S., “no matter how many ‘chocolate cookies’ we get,” according to the Times-Picayune.

The relationship between Greenland and the United States has been tense since President Donald Trump began his campaign to have the U.S. take over the autonomous territory that is part of Denmark. Trump at times has threatened to use force to secure Greenland, even saying he would do so the “easy way” or “the hard way.”

“We’re not gonna have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that’s what they’re gonna do if we don’t,” Trump said in January. “So we’re gonna be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way.”

The demonstrators are chanting “Go home, USA” outside the consulate.

May 21, 2026 pic.twitter.com/EeWGHzF4LP

— Orla Joelsen (@OJoelsen) May 21, 2026

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was dispatched to Capitol Hill to present details of President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion fund to compensate alleged victims of “weaponization” by the Biden DOJ.

According to reports, the meeting with Senate Republicans “did not go well.”

CNN’s Manu Raju reported that Blanche faced “stiff resistance.” He added that he was “told most senators voiced opposition to the fund — hardly any came to its defense.”

“Blanche struggled Thursday to quash GOP concerns over a newly announced $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund,” Politico reports. “Blanche met privately with Senate Republicans as the administration and GOP leaders tried to defuse the controversy over the fund.”

“Nearly 2-hour meeting with Acting AG Todd Blanche and Senate Republicans was incredibly hostile, per multiple attendees,” Punchbowl News senior congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio reported.

“As many as 25 GOP senators spoke (this is very rare for these meetings), all in opposition to weaponization fund,” he noted.

For their part, Republicans “pitched specific ideas such as dictating how the 5 commissioners are chosen,” and “not allowing people convicted of violence against cops to be eligible for a payout.”

One prominent Senate Republican, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, confronted Blanche “about the weaponization fund at the Senate GOP meeting,” reported Semafor congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett.

“Meeting being described as a ‘s——’ per people familiar with it,” Everett noted. He added that the senator “hates the fund” and called it “stupid on stilts” earlier today.

Not only did the meeting not go well, the D.C. Examiner’s Ramsey Touchberry said that he hasn’t heard that any Republican changed their minds. The D.C. Examiner’s David Sivak described the Senate GOP as “super tight-lipped after the Blanche meeting.”

Earlier on Thursday President Donald Trump was asked if he is “losing control” of Senate Republicans.

“I don’t know,” the president replied.

Image via Reuters