Zach Schermley
speaker
93 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 4 Aug
Zach Schermley’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Thanks so much for having me, Dana.
It was one of the most notable signs of Republican pushback to a big priority of President Donald Trump's in the 119th Congress and in the second term of President Donald Trump's stints in the White House.
John Cornyn, a Republican senator from Texas, and Tom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, both really dug their heels in on two things.
The so-called anti-weaponization fund that was set up by
the Justice Department as part of an IRS settlement with the Trumps and a tax audit immunity deal that was the source of a lot of consternation within the Senate Republican Party.
conference and it was really a bridge too far for a lot of Senate Republicans that I spoke to both on the day that it was announced, the weaponization fund and, you know, continuing onward and Todd Blanch, the acting attorney general at
The Justice Department gave assurances during his Senate confirmation hearing that the weaponization fund, which Republican senators and a lot of Democrats were worried was going to ultimately give payouts to folks who were involved in the January 6th riots.
Blanche said that the weaponization fund was functionally dead, that it never gave any payouts and that it wasn't going to be moving forward.
But
cornan and tillis wanted that in writing they were folks who were familiar with how the trump administration operates and with how much of a priority this seemed to be for president trump and so they said we are not going to vote to confirm you todd blanche unless you put this in writing there was a lot of haggling back and forth
about the particulars of that deal.
But finally, they did get something in writing ahead of the Senate's last week in session before an over-month-long recess.
And it was a testament to just how much a little bit of pushback, especially from a Senate Republican, can go.
It absolutely does.
And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who is sort of on the outs with the president right now, although they both maintain that they have a good working relationship and Thune enjoys a lot of support within the Senate Republican Conference, he has said repeatedly that the votes just are not there in the Senate in order to pass the Save America Act.
Remember, this is that large voting restrictions bill.
that the president has been pushing for that would require photo ID to vote and documentary proof of citizenship to vote, as well as it would place limits on mail-in voting.
And, you know, there are a lot of Republicans in the House of Representatives in particular who share the same view.
view as the White House that this is an urgent priority, that this needs to go to the top of the list of the legislative agenda ahead of the midterm elections.
And House Speaker Mike Johnson and my colleague Fran Chambers' conversation with him that I was in the room for
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