WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced on social media Thursday he could withdraw the nomination of Todd Blanche for attorney general until senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn leave office.

The senators and the White House are in a stalemate over a $1.776 billion fund that would allow defendants who harmed police officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to collect restitution.

Trump administration officials told Congress the fund is dead, but Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, and Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, are holding up Blanche’s nomination until they have that in writing.

On Thursday morning, Tillis and Cornyn told Punchbowl News that Blanche was negotiating in good-faith but someone high up at the White House was ruining the deal. Tillis added that he didn’t believe it was Trump.

Within an hour, Trump appeared to confirm it might be him.

He posted that Blanche is “a STAR” and that Trump ended the political careers of both Cornyn and Tillis.

If Trump waits until 2027 to put Blanche’s nomination forward, he would be banking on Republicans winning the North Carolina and Texas Senate races, where Democratic former N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper is facing off against former National Republican Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and Texas state Rep. James Talarico is facing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Tillis announced he would not seek reelection last Summer after getting into a public spat with the president over how his policies would impact North Carolina’s Medicaid recipients. Trump endorsed Paxton over Cornyn for Cornyn’s seat, and Paxton went on to win the Republican primary.

“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 posted.

Trump’s announcement comes on the heels of Sen. Chuck Grassley delaying Thursday’s vote to confirm Blanche for attorney general.

“Chairman Grassley works to set President (Donald) Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure,” the unnamed spokesman said in a news release Wednesday night. “Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement. Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report Attorney General-nominee Todd Blanche, who is highly qualified for the job.”

Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Apr. 2, over the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and her perceived failure to prosecute Trump’s political adversaries. He then tapped Blanche, his former defense attorney and acting deputy attorney general, to fill Bondi’s role.

On May 18, the DOJ announced the creation of the the embattled “1776 fund.” The fund was established through a settlement after Trump sued the IRS for releasing his tax returns. The settlement also led to the DOJ agreeing against any future prosecutions of Trump, his family or his companies for past tax returns filed.

The fund created immediate backlash and a verbal agreement from Trump and DOJ that the fund would not be established.

But Tillis and Cornyn want that agreement in writing. And they won’t confirm Blanche until, as Tillis said, “he sticks a fork in it.”

During Blanche’s confirmation hearing on July 15, Tillis asked if Blanche would provide technical assistance to create in writing, a document, supported by the Trump administration, that he can take to the Senate floor and seek unanimous consent to kill the fund “once and for all.”

Blanche agreed to the strategy.

For Tillis, the fund irked him, because neither Vice President JD Vance nor Blanche would rule out that the fund would be available to people who assaulted police officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as they tried to stop the election certification of President Joe Biden.

But Tillis and Blanche’s agreement is now what’s stalling Blanche’s confirmation.

Meetings with Tillis, Cornyn

On Wednesday, Blanche and other Trump administration officials were seen at the Capitol meeting with Tillis, Cornyn and Senate Leader John Thune, among others.

Reporters in Washington confirmed the group was going back and forth on that exact language but couldn’t come to an agreement.

At one point, an arbitrary 4 p.m. deadline was set to decide whether to hold the scheduled 9 a.m. hearing Thursday morning.

Tillis told a group of reporters that the committee was trying to be respectful of Sen. Darline Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly two weeks earlier. Graham was in South Carolina on Wednesday for her older brother’s funeral, and the committee members did not want force her back to Washington Thursday unless they knew they had a quorum and the votes to pass Blanche through committee.

Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, served alongside Tillis and Cornyn on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the group that confirms judicial nominees like the attorney general. After Graham’s death, his sister took his place both in the Senate and on the committee.

The committee is made up of 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats. With Tillis and Cornyn in opposition, Blanche’s nomination will fail. If one of them moves to a yes, it would be tied, which would force a series of maneuvers could pass Blanche through with a simple majority.

A third senator’s concerns

To complicate matters, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, who also serves on the committee, announced his own set of concerns about Blanche on Wednesday, saying he wants to make sure Blanche understands he used to be Trump’s defense attorney and wouldn’t still be his defense attorney in this new role.

During Blanche’s confirmation hearing, he tripped up on a question from Cassidy about his relationship with Trump, calling himself “Trump’s attorney” before correcting the record. But that was enough to cause some discomfort among senators.

Blanche already has a reputation for using the attorney general’s office to go after Trump’s political enemies.

But Tillis, who is in general supportive of Blanche, does think Blanche will eventually be confirmed, if they can get an agreement on language that ultimately kills the 1776 fund.

If Blanche gets through committee, he still needs to go through the full Senate body for final confirmation. The Senate is in session for one more week before its annual August recess, adding to the pressure of getting Blanche confirmed quickly.

Tillis told Spectrum’s Reuben Jones on Wednesday afternoon that not everything on Capitol Hill is “an existential crisis.”

“We have gotten so obsessed with trying to make everything existential around here,” Tillis told Jones. “Todd’s done a great job as acting A.G. He will continue to do a great job as acting A.G. He will be confirmed if we can get through this. People need to chill out and just recognize this for what it is.”

He added that Blanche is doing “a fine job.”

“Don’t treat every damn disagreement as if it’s somehow the thing that destroyed society as we know it,” Tillis said. “It’s just silly.”

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