Republican Senators Reject Trump’s $1.8B Jan.6 Compensation Fund

Republican senators in the U.S. Senate voted to refuse President Donald Trump’s proposal to create a roughly $1.8 billion fund intended to compensate individuals the president says were wrongly prosecuted for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and related cases. The same opposition extended to a separate $1 billion request for security upgrades to the White House ballroom.

The refusal stalled the Senate’s consideration of a larger $70 billion budget package that would fund Trump’s immigration and deportation priorities through 2029, pushing the vote past the president’s June 1 deadline. Trump’s push for the compensation plan, described by Sen. Thom Tillis as a “payout for punks” and “stupid on stilts,” drew sharp criticism from GOP leaders, including former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who called it “utterly stupid, morally wrong.”

The episode marks a rare instance of intra‑party defiance, with similar dissent emerging among House Republicans over a war‑powers resolution aimed at limiting Trump’s military actions in Iran.