(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Thursday floated the possibility of temporarily withdrawing Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general as his confirmation is being held up by two outgoing Republican senators.

“Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it! He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time. However, 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,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

“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.

Both senators’ terms will end in January. Cornyn lost a primary battle in Texas earlier this year after Trump endorsed his opponent, Ken Paxton. Tillis announced last year he would not seek reelection after Trump threatened to field primary challengers.

Cornyn, in response to Trump’s social media post, suggested that, in addition to him and Tillis, there are more lawmakers with “concerns” regarding Blanche.

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

Cornyn is demanding the Department of Justice put in writing that the nearly $1.8 billion so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is officially dead, and that the scope of Trump’s immunity deal with the IRS be narrowed.

As part of Trump’s settlement with the IRS in his $10 billion lawsuit against the agency, the DOJ issued an addendum, signed by Blanche in his role as acting attorney general, that would bar the government from continuing any existing audits of tax returns filed by Trump, his family and their companies.

“I know that Todd Blanche understands it, but I think he’s probably getting some pushback from the White House, and that’s making things more complicated than there needs to be,” Cornyn told ABC News on Thursday morning.

Cornyn said he wanted the DOJ to rewrite the IRS settlement agreement itself and said they were “reluctant” to do so. Cornyn then said he offered them an alternative.

“So we provided some additional paper…which, if he would put that in writing, would satisfy my concerns because he said the weaponization fund is dead. He said the audit protections don’t extend beyond the parties in the lawsuit, and it doesn’t cover any federal entities,” the senator said.

When asked by a reporter if the DOJ committed to doing that, Cornyn said “no.”

“I don’t know whether they think they can wait us out or we’ll cave, but I assure you, we won’t,” Cornyn said.

Tillis said the administration could “roll the dice” and wait out his and Cornyn’s Senate terms, but said Trump is getting bad advice on how to proceed with Blanche’s nomination.

“Hey, 158 days they can try it again, roll the dice on what the Senate confirmation process looks like next year. It’s all on him. It’s certainly within his authority to do that,” Tillis said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed its scheduled Thursday vote on Blanche’s nomination for attorney general amid the resistance from Cornyn and Tillis.

Sources told ABC News that DOJ sent an updated proposal to the two senators last night to try and quell their concerns. 

But when we asked on Thursday morning whether Wednesday night’s proposal moved him any closer to voting for Blanche, Cornyn responded, “We are no closer than we were before.”

Withdrawing Blanche’s nomination is a decision that would have no consequence in terms of Blanche leading the DOJ. Blanche can continue to serve as acting attorney general.

Acting department officials can serve in the role for 210 days, according to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act — however, that resets if a nomination is withdrawn.

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(WASHINGTON) — Republican senators vowed to vote next week on holding Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he declined to answer a barrage of questions at a hearing Wednesday about his role in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during the hearing before the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the committee chairman who has led investigations into Fauci, said after the hearing that he wanted courts to assess whether Fauci could plead the Fifth Amendment given he was pre-emptively pardoned by President Joe Biden out of fear of political prosecution.

Paul has long accused Fauci of deceiving Americans about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci said in his opening statement that he would refrain from answering questions under the advice of his attorneys. “It pains me to do so because of the respect that I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress,” he said.

Fauci said he testified before or briefed congressional committees over 200 times in his 38 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“Given Sen. Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this Committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,'” Fauci said.

Paul focused his questioning on Fauci’s personal journal entries between December 2019 and December 2022, as well as the origins of COVID-19, but Fauci declined to answer the questions.

Over the weekend, Paul released a tranche of Fauci’s journal entries — a more than 1,100-page document — revealing his inner thoughts about the origins of COVID, a detailed log of events within the White House situation and press briefing rooms, and his myriad media appearances about the response to COVID-19 and other health outbreaks.

One of Fauci’s attorneys, David Schertler, who was sitting next to him, attempted to speak several times after Paul’s questioning was over, but the senator shut him down, saying the attorney wasn’t recognized.

“You were told not to sit at the table, you insist on sitting at the table, and we told you you would not be recognized,” Paul said to the attorney. “You are not invited here for testimony, sir. … Would you behave this way in a courtroom? No, ’cause the judge would put you in jail. I can’t do that today, but I can have you escorted from the premises.”

After about another minute, Paul called for security and Capitol Police had Schertler escorted from the room.

Republicans on the committee hammered Fauci over entries in his journal that they claim show he contradicted himself and sought personal fame. 

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., sounding incredulous, said that Fauci lied to his own diary when Fauci wrote that he was never shown a March 2020 re-opening plan sent to governors by President Donald Trump. 

“So I’m just simply asking you: Is that true? Did you literally lie to your own diary? Did you know of that letter sent out to governors about reopening county by county?” Johnson said.

Fauci again invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.

Other Republican senators, including James Lankford of Oklahoma, asked Fauci about the theory that the COVID-19 virus originated in a laboratory, but the doctor declined to answer questions.

In a December 2024 letter to the staff director for the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Schertler said Fauci has never characterized the lab-leak theory as a conspiracy theory but that the discussion around the lab-leak theory has been “rife” with conspiracy theories.

Democrats on the committee defended Fauci’s right to plead the Fifth and thanked him for his years of service. They used their time to condemn the hearing as a fishing expedition — and one that distracted the committee from more pressing public health concerns like the current U.S. measles outbreak and affordable health care.

“That’s what I wish we were trying to address in a bipartisan way,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said. “But instead we are here in an attempt to entrap you, because you had a distinguished career trying to put Americans’ public health first.”

Ranking member Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., decried the hearing as counterproductive, saying the attacks on Fauci would deter others from engaging in the work necessary to protect from public health crises. 

“I think today’s hearing, unfortunately, does real damage,” Peters said. “It’s tempting to turn one person into the scapegoat for a crisis that hundreds of officials across both the Trump and the Biden administration were responsible for handling.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., referred to the pandemic as some of the “darkest days or times in our history” and said Republicans were attempting to “rebrand” Fauci as a “villain.”

“Dr. Fauci is just one part of this larger campaign against science and facts — a campaign that has made Americans less safe,” Blumenthal said. “It is shameful that a dedicated public servant like Dr. Fauci has experienced persistent threats to his life since the pandemic because of the lies that are told about him.”

ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — National political leaders and prominent figures from around the globe are remembering South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham with a ceremony on Capitol Hill and a funeral service in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump paid tribute to his close ally at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday afternoon.

“Today, we gather in the deepest gratitude and profoundest sorrow to honor a beloved friend, a devoted brother, a respected statesman, a giant of the United States Senate and a true American original who left us much too soon,” Trump said. “And that can only be the one and only Lindsey Graham.”

The cathedral funeral is being attended by a number of world leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Graham worked closely with both men as a staunch ally to both nations. Graham spent some of his final days in Ukraine and met with Zelenskyy just before he died.

Sean Hannity and Graham’s niece, Emillie Boggs Roberts, will also deliver remarks.

Graham first was recognized with a ceremony in the Capitol rotunda Tuesday morning. His casket, draped in an American flag, was escorted by Air Force personnel and received by members of his family, including his sister Sen. Darline Graham, on the Capitol steps.

A great number of senators, both Democrats and Republicans, were in attendance. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President JD Vance gave remarks, as did South Carolina Republican Rep. Sheri Briggs.

Thune remembered Graham for his work in national security and defense, his efforts on the Senate Judiciary Committee and for his commitment to pro-life issues.

Thune seemed to choke back tears toward the ends of his remarks as he said a final goodbye to Graham.

“To Lindsey, rest in peace, my friend. I look forward to the days when you make us all laugh again,” he said.

Vance said he will remember Graham as someone who would fight alongside you on issues you both care about while respectfully disagreeing on others, and shared a story of an “intense argument” they had over Ukraine, but that it didn’t stop Graham from supporting him on another issue.

“I choose to remember Lindsey Graham as a person who could fight with you on one issue, but fight for you on another issue,” the vice president said. “I remember Lindsey Graham as a man who loved people, and because he loved people, he was willing to reason with them, to respect them, and ultimately to persuade them.”

“It was impossible not to like him — that swashbuckling, infectious laugh, that attitude, that passion that so many others have talked about. Lindsey Graham was impossible not to like as a human being, and of course, as a United States senator,” Vance added in his speech.

Graham served more than two decades in the Senate, becoming one of the chamber’s most recognizable Republicans and one of Trump’s closest friends and advisers. He advised the president on foreign matters, including the recent war in Iran, and was a prominent fixture of the Senate’s powerful Judiciary Committee.

He died suddenly and unexpectedly on July 11 at the age of 71. Preliminary findings from the Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia said that the senator died due to “aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.”

Graham’s casket will return to South Carolina on Wednesday, where further memorial services are set for Columbia, the state’s capital, and Pickens County, where Graham grew up and part of the district he represented.

The U.S. Air Force will rename Joint Base Charleston in South Carolina for Graham, a White House official confirmed on Tuesday.

The base, which falls under the command of the United States Air Force’s 628th Air Base Wing, will be renamed to Joint Base Lindsey Graham, according to a memorandum from Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink dated July 27.

In the memo obtained by ABC News, Meink said that the renaming would honor “Graham’s decades of distinguished service to the United States Congress and the United States Air Force.” It was not immediately clear when the change would go into effect.

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(NEW YORK) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called on Monday for Sen. Mitch McConnell to either “verbally” show proof to Kentuckians that he can still serve in the Senate or to resign from Congress.

“Important events are happening in our country right now during your absence,” Beshear, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to the Republican senator, according to a copy obtained by ABC News.

McConnell has been hospitalized since June 14, according to his office, which said on July 12 that the 84-year-old senator was recovering from a fall that left him briefly unconscious. He also had to deal with a “mild case of pneumonia,” his office said.

“President [Donald] Trump is stuck in a war of his own making and has greatly strengthened the very country he claims is a threat,” Beshear wrote. “Prices continue to rise, crushing Americans who are working hard but not getting ahead. Americans’ voting rights are being eliminated by the Supreme Court and threatened by congressional action. All while you are absent and refuse to communicate clearly and directly to the people you serve.”

“As Governor of the state you serve, I am calling on you to directly and verbally address the people of Kentucky and provide proof of your capacity to serve, or resign,” he added.

ABC News reached out to McConnell’s office for comment, but didn’t immediately receive a response.

The letter followed a statement issued on Monday by McConnell’s office, in which the senator said he would miss an upcoming Kentucky political event in order to continue his rehabilitation.

“I’m still working hard to get back to my full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky, keeping up with intense physical therapy per my doctors’ orders,” McConnell said in the statement.

McConnell’s office also included a new image of the senator and his wife, Elaine Chao, that it said was taken on Sunday, July 26.

Beshear on Monday also sent a separate letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, calling on Thune to investigate McConnell’s condition and, if McConnell does not show he can continue serving in the Senate, to begin the process of potentially expelling McConnell from the chamber.

“Per our research, a vacancy in the Senate occurs when a senator dies, resigns, or is expelled by a vote of the Senate itself,” Beshear wrote in the letter to Thune. “If Senator McConnell is unwilling to voluntarily show that he still has the capacity to serve, I will insist that you as the Majority Leader of the Senate fully investigate his condition, report to the American people, and begin the process if warranted.”

Beshear as governor does not have the authority to alter McConnell’s standing in the Senate. If McConnell’s seat were to become vacant, Beshear would likely have to set up a special election to fill it.

Kentucky lawmakers previously passed legislation that blocked the governor from having the ability to appoint a temporary replacement.

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(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office issued a statement from the Republican senator on Monday saying that he will miss an upcoming Kentucky political event in order to continue his rehabilitation following a June 14 fall that left him hospitalized.

“I’m still working hard to get back to my full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky, keeping up with intense physical therapy per my doctors’ orders. Unfortunately, that means I won’t be able to make it to Fancy Farm, Kentucky this Saturday,” McConnell said in the statement of the political event and cookout held annually in Kentucky.

“As always, I appreciate all of your continued well wishes, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the Senate and to Kentucky soon.”

An additional statement from the Office of the Attending Physician says that McConnell is continuing with a course of physical therapy and rehabilitation, adding that he is “not yet medically cleared to leave the rehab facility and return to the office.”

“Since his discharge from hospital care, he has maintained a strenuous course of physical therapy and rehabilitation, including multiple sessions a day designed to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of future falls,” the OAP statement reads.

McConnell’s office also included a new image of the senator and his wife, Elaine Chao, that it says was taken on Sunday, July 26.

McConnell was hospitalized on June 14, though his team initially released few details about the incident — prompting calls from many, including Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, for more transparency.

In a statement issued July 12, nearly a month after his hospitalization, McConnell said he was hospitalized due to a fall that left him briefly unconscious. He also had to deal with a “mild case of pneumonia.”

He has not been seen on Capitol Hill since June 11.

McConnell has said he intends to finish his term, which expires in January. The seven-term senator has already said he does not intend to seek reelection in January.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will attend the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner Friday night, the White House said, after the annual dinner ended abruptly three months ago when shots rang out.

“Alongside all of you members of the media, the president looks forward to finishing what he started before a despicable assassination attempt derailed the original event back in April,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday.

The spring dinner devolved into chaos after authorities say Cole Allen opened fire inside the Washington Hilton hotel, where thousands of journalists and guests gathered for the annual celebration of the First Amendment. The president and top government officials were also in attendance.

Allen pleaded not guilty in May to charges of attempting to assassinate the president, transportation of a firearm with intent to commit a felony, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon.

Secret Service officer Victor Gonzales was shot in the incident, but the bullet struck “his protective vest and [he] continued responding to the threat,” the Secret Service said.

Sean Curran, the Secret Service director, said in a briefing on Wednesday that the agency measures worked in April and that they are preparing for Friday’s rescheduled dinner.

Friday’s dinner is taking place at a different Washington, D.C., hotel, the Waldorf Astoria on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“We will always evaluate every site and, right now, we have an advance team there and they will take back and they will set up a plan to set that site up for success just like we did at the White House correspondents’ dinner at the Hilton,” Curran said.

The White House Correspondents’ Association announced on Tuesday that it will present a special award, the President’s Award for Exceptional Service, during Friday night’s dinner to Gonzales and the staff of the Washington Hilton.

“Officer Gonzales played a significant role when he ran toward danger so that thousands of others could make it home safely,” Weijia Jiang, who presided over the April dinner as WHCA president, said in a statement. “His courage stemmed from a dedication to service, which we are looking forward to honoring this week.”

Jiang said the Hilton staff is being recognized for their “professionalism and commitment to service” by continuing to “take care of guests” after experiencing the “harrowing situation” themselves.

The shooting took place before the scheduled program that features the presentation of journalism awards, remarks from the president, and entertainment from an invited headliner. This year’s entertainer was mentalist Oz Pearlman, who will be back for the redo dinner, the association said.

The association added that it was determined “to finish the program that was interrupted.”

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