June 4, 2026
Senate Republicans have been huffing and puffing and even derailed their own agenda for weeks because they were so mad about President Trump’s $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund. But when they had the chance to kill it forever today, not enough of them voted yes.
But that’s not all that happened.
The Vote-a-Rama is on in the United States Senate right now. It’s been going on all day.
The Vote-a-Rama is a required step before Republicans can vote on another one of President Trump’s key priorities: a reconciliation bill to give ICE and Customs and Border Protection another $70 billion. That’s, of course, on top of the $75 billion Republicans already gave ICE in the Big Beautiful Bill.
But before senators can vote on that immigration reconciliation bill, they have to go through this Vote-a-Rama, which is this wonky Senate procedure where any senator can offer an amendment and that amendment gets a vote.
Depending on what’s in the amendment, it either needs a simple majority or it needs 60 votes to pass.
Now, these amendments are designed to make people look bad. They’re meant to put lawmakers in a difficult position so the opposing party can use their support or opposition against them during the election.
Basically, it’s messy.
But I love messy, so let’s look at what they’ve been voting on so far today.
So far, every amendment in the Vote-a-Rama has failed. But it’s what they’re voting on — and who’s voting yes and who’s voting no — that’s interesting.
There was an amendment to prohibit funds from being used for the White House ballroom. There were two different amendments to try and shut down President Trump’s Anti-Weaponization Fund. And there was an amendment clearly meant to prohibit Bill Pulte from being the acting Director of National Intelligence.
Again, all of these amendments failed, but let’s look at who voted yes and who voted no.
When it comes to Trump’s Anti-Weaponization Fund, between the two separate amendments, of course all the Democrats and Independents voted yes to kill the fund. But so did Republican Senators Collins, Husted, Sullivan, Cassidy, Cornyn, Curtis, Ernst, Moran, Murkowski, Rounds, Tillis, and Young.
Again, these two separate amendments failed, but it’s still very interesting to see the number of Republican senators who are clearly not happy about this fund.
Some of them feel emboldened to challenge President Trump and vote yes because they are not running for reelection and they have nothing to lose. Others are absolutely in tough reelection battles and don’t want their Democratic challengers to run campaign ads saying they support Trump’s fund.
But some are neither of those things, and they just clearly are not happy about the Anti-Weaponization Fund.
As for the amendment to block any taxpayer money from being used for President Trump’s ballroom, all the Democrats and Independents voted yes, but so did Republican Senators Cassidy, Collins, Husted, Moran, Murkowski, Sullivan, and Tillis.
And then there was that amendment clearly meant to stop President Trump from installing Bill Pulte as acting DNI. All the Democrats and Independents voted yes, but so did Republicans Cassidy, Collins, and Murkowski.
This Vote-a-Rama is going to continue for however long it takes, and when it’s done, the Senate will vote on the ICE and CBP funding bill.
Because it’s a reconciliation bill, it only needs a simple majority to pass. Zero Democrats are going to vote yes. They had nothing to do with this, and they are very upset that no changes will be made to the way ICE and CBP conduct themselves on the streets of America.
But Republicans don’t need their votes. If all Republicans stick together, because there are 53 of them, they could easily get this ICE and CBP bill passed.
But any one of those Republicans who voted yes on these amendments may be able to derail this immigration bill.
I’ll keep you posted.
Look at amendment votes from June 4 here.
