Trump says he’s open to temporarily withdrawing Blanche nomination amid GOP resistance

By Kevin Liptak, Alison Main, Manu Raju, Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wouldn’t object to temporarily withdrawing Todd Blanche as his nominee for attorney general amid resistance from two Republican senators, another major blow to Blanche’s confirmation battle.

Trump said he could renominate Blanche after Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, the primary voices of opposition, have left the Senate in the new year. But that itself is a gamble, as the makeup of the Senate could shift in ways that would make Blanche’s confirmation even more difficult.

“I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump’s announcement puts Blanche’s nomination in even further peril, escalating a battle between the administration and GOP lawmakers over a controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund and an agreement that shields Trump and his family from government action over tax issues.

Already, Cornyn and Tillis had signaled they were unwilling to support Blanche’s nomination if the administration would not take action to unwind the fund and modify the settlement agreement, and the nomination cannot move forward without their support. And responding to Trump’s announcement, Cornyn suggested Thursday they were not alone.

“POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis,” he wrote.

Earlier on Thursday, Cornyn had accused the White House of standing in the way of a deal to help Blanche win confirmation. The nomination hit another, major setback Wednesday evening when the Senate Judiciary Committee was forced to postpone a vote to advance it amid resistance from Cornyn and Tillis.

“I think if this were just between me and Todd Blanche, we would have worked this out. But apparently he’s getting some pushback from higher ups at the White House. I don’t know who, but this doesn’t need to be this hard,” Cornyn said on Thursday, declining to say who at the White House he was referring to.

Tillis, speaking to reporters before Trump’s Truth Social post, said: “This is not about Blanche. Blanche is negotiating in good faith. We have somebody else in the way, and I don’t believe it’s the president.”

After the Truth Social post, Tillis asserted that someone in the Trump administration was resisting a proposal to kill the fund and modify the language protecting Trump on tax issues because “that same adviser wants to bring it back to life at some point.” Tillis has not specified who he believes that adviser is.

“The president’s getting bad advice. He should listen to Blanche and others who think if it’s dead, it should be rendered completely dead,” he told CNN, referring to the weaponization fund.

Remarking on the possibility that Trump could withdraw and re-nominate Blanche, Cornyn said, “Hey, 158 days, they can try it again. Roll the dice on what the Senate confirmation process looks like next year.”

For his part, Trump unleashed harsh criticism of Cornyn and Tillis, who have refused to back Blanche in the weeks-long battle with the administration.

“John Cornyn, of Texas, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, both of whom I refused to Endorse, and whose political careers have been ended by my action, are refusing to vote for this Great Nominee, who will remain, in any event, as Acting,” the president wrote. “Remember, both Cornyn and Tillis voted for Merrick Garland, and others, too numerous to mention.”

The GOP holdouts are pushing Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, to confirm in writing that the anti-weaponization fund, which was created as part of an agreement to settle a lawsuit from Trump, some of his adult children and his businesses against the IRS, cannot be recreated.

Cornyn has also been clear he wants Blanche to clarify an addendum to that agreement which offers tax immunity, which would make explicit that it only applies to past tax investigations against the president and those listed on the lawsuit.

The demands have left Blanche in a difficult place, as putting limits on the tax addendum could anger the president.

One source familiar said that while the Justice Department has sent over several options on how that could be accomplished, Cornyn has so far found each of those proposals are not enough to satisfy him.

The Texas Republican said he thought he had “met in the middle” with the administration in a proposal he sent Wednesday evening, but he said he “heard this morning that that was all off.”

In his counterproposal, Cornyn said he “provided some additional documentation that did not require changing the release itself.”

If Trump were to temporarily pull Blanche’s nomination, he would still have the authority of a Senate-confirmed attorney general despite his acting title. That role has a 210-day limit, though it can be extended while his nomination is pending.

If the president entirely withdrew the nomination, Blanche could still be in charge because he is the deputy attorney general and holds the same power as the head of the Justice Department.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said on Thursday prior to Trump’s Truth Social post that it remains his “intention” to get Blanche through his panel.

“Exactly when that can happen, I don’t know, but we’re going to work hard to get the differences worked out,” he continued.

Trump called Blanche, who’s currently serving as acting attorney general, a “STAR,” and said he “has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Ellis Kim, Logan Schiciano, Casey Riddle and Abigail Rodersheimer contributed.