The NPR Politics Podcast - Why is Todd Blanche's nomination as attorney general in limbo?

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Some Senate Republicans are refusing to approve President Trump's attorney general pick unless the Trump administration commits in writing to certain guarantees related to the president's settlement with the IRS. We discuss that fight, plus why the Patriot missile defense system matters so much to Ukraine. This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, national security correspondent Greg Myre, and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

President Trump wants a new attorney general. But some Republicans in the Senate are holding out on approving Todd Blanche for the job. We're starting with the Justice Department on our weekly roundup of political news. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. Ryan, remind us about Todd Blanche. Why is he in line for this job? So look, Todd Blanche has been the number two official at the Justice Department deputy attorney general since early in this administration. But the most salient fact about Todd Blanche is that he was the president's personal attorney.

He defended him in several of the cases that the president faced when he was out of office. He won Trump's favor. He is seen as a loyalist. And once Pam Bondi was forced out as attorney general, president. Trump's first Attorney General in this administration. Trump elevated Blanche to the acting attorney general role and then has nominated him to be the permanent attorney general. And Blanche, during this interim period, has done a lot of things that make President Trump

very happy. He's done a whole lot of things. There's one thing in particular, however, that has become the kind of crux of this nomination process for him, which is the settlement that the Justice Department struck with President Trump to end his lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns. And the reason that we're talking about Blanche today is because of this fight over his nomination process and the snag that it's hit along the way. Yeah. So let's dig in on that. Who are these Republicans that are holding up? And why are they holding it up? So the two key Republicans right now that are

holding this up are Texas Senator John Cornyn and North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis, both Republicans, as I said, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has to vote on Blanche's nomination. Now, these two men have concerns. They want written assurances from the Justice Department about the IRS settlement that relate to that. Remember, that settlement included the creation of a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. Todd Blanche has said that that fund is not moving forward. It also includes this really kind of sweeping tax immunity. deal for President Trump, his family, and his businesses that essentially shields them from IRS audits of past tax returns. Now, Blanche says that that immunity deal is still very much in effect. And what Cornyn and Tillis want are written assurances, written, they want a written document from the Justice Department spelling out that the anti-weaponization fund is indeed dead, something that Blanche has not done so far.

And then the other thing is they want the scope of the immunity deal clarified. And by that, I mean, they want the Justice Department to put in writing that it only applies to President Trump, his two sons and the Trump organization, that it's limited to pass tax returns, not forward-looking tax returns, and that it only applies to the IRS and not other government entities like the SEC, the Security and Exchange Commission. And so far, the Justice Department has not provided those assurances despite negotiations back and forth for days over this. And so as things stand as of right now, Cornyn and Tillis are withholding their votes to support Blanche's nomination. Franco, this is where we turn to the White House. President Trump was just asked about this in a cabinet meeting. He put out a post on social media earlier today. he's not as excited about this fund being dead as maybe some other people.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's very clear that Trump has no plans on playing ball to try to get Blanche through, at least under the conditions that Cornyn and Tillis are making. I mean, he's suggested that he would rather wait until Cornyn and Tillis are gone. they're going to be leaving office at the end of the year and replaced. At his cabinet meeting, as you mentioned, which was at Camp David, you know, Trump continued to back Blanche and said he should, you know, be confirmed. He said, quote, Todd Blanche is a very, very good man and he shouldn't be in the middle of this. You know, he also went on to attack Cornyn as he did as well on social media, you know, accusing Cornyn of withholding his. vote and retaliation against Trump because Trump endorsed his opponent and the Republican primary in Texas. Now, I will say that Trump did say during the cabinet meeting that the fund is dead, kind of backing what Blanche has said.

But he also said, Trump, that is, that he supports the idea behind the fund and said he'll always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back. So it makes a lot of sense why these Republicans would. want something in writing. When the president is saying things like that, and as we have reported many, many times, the president will say many things and change his mind and do different things. Why is this fund so important to the president? Well, it's very important to the president because it speaks to one of his main campaign promises, which is going after people that he believes attacked him and going after his political enemies. Now, Trump went on and on even today saying this was not about him, but this speaks to one of his, you know, ongoing messages that he and therefore his party and his supporters are victims of political attacks, political abuse.

So this is kind of an extension of that long cause that he has been fighting for. And it would also potentially kind of speak to, you know, his argument that he won. the 2020 election, something that's false and been proven over and over again. That did not happen. But it is a way to kind of keep that message going. I want to jump in here and say that, you know, on the political front for Republicans on Capitol Hill, particularly senators, this fund was never popular. Oh, it was toxic. It was toxic. And in large part is this is a $1.8 billion fund of taxpayer money. This isn't money coming from someplace else. This is tax. pay or money that could be used to make payouts to political allies of the president. And it's ultimately a board that was supposed to be created to then decide who gets payouts.

But the Justice Department and the president would have a hand in creation of that board. And what Blanche and the Justice Department said was that basically anybody could apply and they wouldn't rule out the possibility that people who attacked police on January 6th, people who beat police officers, hit them with fire extinguishers, with flagpoles, that those people could receive thousands, if not millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money by making claims to this fund. And so that for a lot of Republican senators was just a very difficult pill to swallow, which is why we've seen this pushback from Cornyn and Tillis. And from what Cornyn and Tillis say, they are not the only two senators who have concerns about this fund. Yeah, and many of those people who could potentially get payouts, they were convicted or pled guilty to very serious charges, but then were pardoned by President Trump when he returned to office.

Some 15, 1600 people, that's right. So, Franco, this is a midterm year. How does this play into the midterms? What is the political calculation here? I mean, I think the political calculations are pretty big. I mean, this is a political risk. as, you know, Ryan was just saying, Republicans don't want to be defending a policy that critics say is taxpayer-funded and rewarding people who attacked police. I mean, this is a very, very easy attack line for Democrats. I mean, the ads basically write themselves. You know, there's also a conflict of interest question concerning Trump's involvement, considering this came out of Trump's case. I will know pushing back maybe a little bit on some of the things that Ryan said, on the flip side, Republicans also have a risk here. They definitely do not like this, but they also have to be very careful in angering not only Trump, but Trump's base by opposing this. They know politically that there are dangers in kind of going on opposition to this. And that's why likely you're only, or we're only hearing from a couple Republican senators opposing this publicly because they do not run any risk of losing an election because they are either already lost

election or they're not running again. Ryan, what are the actual practical consequences here? He is the acting attorney general. He has been since April. And President Trump, when he even floated the idea of potentially withdrawing his nomination, said, one, that Blanche would remain acting attorney general. And two, once Cornyn didn't tell us leave office that he could just resubmit Blanche's nomination, there is some dispute among legal scholars as to whether or not Blanche

could just serve indefinitely as acting attorney general. I think that we would not be getting over our skis to say that if the president wants to keep him in an acting position through the end of this administration that he would try to do so, there might be some sort of legal filing against that some challenge, but that's not exactly settled law at this point. There is some dispute over that. So ultimately, what we can say is that the president has his man at the Justice Department now. And it doesn't appear as though this whole fight over whether or not he gets through and finally confirmed is going to change the kind of status quo at the DOJ. Speaking of the status quo at the DOJ, there were some developments this week in the case against

former FBI director James Comey. This is an indictment that was handed down after Todd Blanche became acting attorney general. What is the status of this? this case. So this is the second indictment of James Comey. The first one was was tossed by a court in Virginia. This one revolves around the photo that he took and posted on social media of seashells on the seashore that spelled out 8647, which the Justice Department and the president interpreted as slang for eliminating the president and interpreted it as a threat against Trump. So Comey faces threats charges in this case. And what this week's development is, is Comey filed a couple of motions seeking to have this case tossed. The most interesting one that I'll mention briefly is a motion

to dismiss for vindictive or selective prosecution. And what Comey's attorneys say is that basically they have a lot of evidence to support this idea that Comey was targeted because of who he is, because the president doesn't like him. They cite secret service messages in which Asia, say that President Trump wants updates on the interview that they were going to have with Comey, the president being basically directly involved in monitoring this investigation. Like as the investigation is ongoing. As it's ongoing. It's kind of in a step-by-step way. Comey's attorneys also say that messages show that the Secret Service electronically tracked and

physically surveilled Comey and his wife when they were driving home from North Carolina, something that one agent in the filings described as legally questionable. So what Comey's attorneys are doing here is it's a big ask to have a case dismissed for vindictive prosecution. You don't see it a lot. We have seen it in this administration, the case against Kilmar Obrigo Garcia. But, you know, in the last case against Comey that was tossed for other reasons talking to lawyers about that, the interpretation that I heard from a lot of them was if these cases against Comey don't rise to the level of vindictive prosecution. It's unclear what would.

So there's certainly a belief among some legal folks that Comey has a real case to make here that he is being targeted because of who he is. All right. Ryan Lucas, we're going to leave it there for now. But thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, much ado about missile. And we're back. And with us now is NPR National Security correspondent Greg Myrie, who is in Kiev. Hello, Greg.

Hi, Tam. So there are two major military conflicts in the world right now, the war between Russia and Ukraine and the U.S. Israeli war with Iran. And you can learn a lot about both of them by looking at one type of missile, the Patriot. So, Greg, let's start there. Introduce us to the Patriot missile. Yeah, it's actually a very old air defense system first introduced way back in the 1980s. It really came into the spotlight, ironically or not, in the first Gulf War when the U.S. was battling Iraq and shooting down Iraqi scud missiles in the Gulf, which is where a war is taking place today, although obviously against Iran instead of Iraq. It is considered until recently, and another system came along, the premier system for shooting down ballistic missiles. About 20 countries have the Patriot Air Defense system built by Raytheon, now called RTX. These include European countries, Gulf countries, Asian allies of the U.S., and Ukraine. And what has happened with these two wars is that there is a huge demand, not just for the systems, but for the missiles you need to fire, essentially like the bullets you fire from a gun. And there just aren't enough of them. Ukraine desperately needs them to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.

The U.S. and its Gulf allies need them to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles. And there just aren't enough to go around. the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington put out a report this week and by digging through military budgets and that sort of thing. They say the stockpile of U.S. Patriot missiles has gone for about 2,300 before the Iran War to about 800 today. So around two-thirds of them have been used up. And a lot of countries want them. There's not enough. And it takes a long time to make them.

So this is like, and I'm now going to probably explain this incorrectly, but this is like a really smart missile that chases down other missiles and knocks them out of the sky? Exactly. And that's not an easy thing to do when these missiles are coming at a minimum of 2,000 miles an hour but can come much, much faster than that. So you need not only the missile launcher, you need a radar system and other components, and you have to be very precise. And the Patriot has proven quite adept. at shooting down these ballistic missiles. Nobody else has developed a system is good. The U.S. has another more advanced system out there now, but this is the mainstay for doing this. Those missiles cost about $4 million a piece. If you place an order, it can take three or four years to get that order delivered from Lockheed Martin, which produces the missiles. So you can't

just order them on Amazon and have them show up at your door within a matter of days. Yeah, this is not Uber Eats at all. Franco, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington this week to attend the funeral of South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. He also met with President Trump and Patriots were on the agenda. Yeah, they were. I mean, this was actually a big, a big ask that the Kiev has had for quite some time, wanting to get some type of greater support for Patriots, which specifically they were asking for. And what specifically Trump offered was a license to manufacture these Patriot missiles.

And it was seen as a, at the time, as a major strategic shift in posture toward Ukraine from Russia. I kind of also spoke to the shift in tone that we've been hearing over the last few months, you know, culminating with this announcement of the licenses. And that announcement was a few weeks ago in Turkey. This meeting was in theory to lock it in. Exactly. It was a lock it in. And, you know, there was such fanfare behind it.

There was such move. I mean, I was, you know, taken aback by it because this had been something that, you know, Zelensky and, you know, the leaders in Kiev have been pushing for so long. And it was such a big announcement. It was very stunning. But I'm saying there's some hesitancy in my voice. You're in the past tense. Because just today, Trump was backing off on that. At the cabinet meeting, he was extremely hesitant saying that they had not made a decision yet.

And he was expressing caution saying that they had to be very careful not to give out secrets to those weapons. So it was a complete turnaround from what he was saying just a couple weeks ago to, you know, President Zelensky to his face in front of cameras and saying that we are going to offer this license. We are going to teach you how to make these Patriot missiles. And then today to say that we're not necessarily doing that. We have not made a decision. And, Tam, I'll just add that, you know, Ukraine was really getting its hopes up, both from the standpoint of Trump seeing more sympathetic to Ukraine, as Franco noted, but also that there might be some avenue to do. And develop their own Patriot missiles for the Patriot systems that they have. It's not a quick

fix by any means. It would probably take a few years to get it off the ground. So it doesn't solve the problem that they're facing tonight when there could be another missile attack from Russia. But it was positive news. And already you're seeing Ukrainians say, what's going on here? are we being, you know, having the rug pulled out from under us again? Greg, you're in Kiev, and I want you to explain why this is so important to Ukraine. Like, in a very tangible sense, I think there are things happening in this war that drive home why this is so important. Yeah, the Ukrainians outnumbered, outmanned, outgunned by the Russians have come up with lots of very clever, adaptable ways to fight back with fewer resources. And one of the big fronts has been the air war.

Russia can fire hundreds of drones at Ukraine in a single night. Ukraine has developed its own world-leading, world-beating interceptor drones. They take down about 90 percent or more of these incoming Russian drones. Russian cruise missiles, which fly low and slow, Ukraine is also very effective at shooting down cruise missiles, again, 90% or more. But the ballistic missiles, which fly very high and very fast, are very hard to shoot down. And Ukraine has no other option that's effective or consistent other than the Patriot missile system. And in fact, we've just done the math, looking at the statistics that the Ukraine Air Force puts out every day. Russia has fired 157 ballistic missiles this month, which is one of the highest monthly totals, if not the highest

monthly total so far in the war. Ukraine only shot down 36 of them, according to its Air Force. So you're seeing 90% against drones and cruise missiles versus about 25% against the ballistic missiles, which also are the deadliest and do the most damage. So this is a real gaping hole in an otherwise pretty strong Ukrainian defense that has held the Russians at bay. So there's like this tool that could save lives and protect infrastructure and and defend Ukraine. And that tool is in short supply. Absolutely. You know, there just wasn't the anticipation before the Ukraine war and the Iran war that you might need this many patriot missiles.

We just haven't seen this level of ballistic missile fire coming from countries hostile to the U.S. or its allies. So we've just sort of reached some unprecedented situations, and the stockpile just isn't there, and they can't be made fast enough to keep up. In fact, one of the reasons Russia seems to be firing so many ballistic missiles now is they know Ukraine doesn't have defenses in place. So rather than wait, in which case Ukraine may get more defensive missiles at some point, Russia is firing off missiles at a higher rate than they can make them because they know Ukraine is relatively defenseless at this point. Let me just add to that. You know, I mean, the White House has, you know, heard these concerns and has kind of been pushing back on them saying that they have, you know, all the missiles and munitions that they need to maintain kind of U.S. forces. in the various conflicts, including Iran.

I mean, that's where the biggest concern about the Patriot missiles have been as well as other munitions. But, you know, like Greg is saying, you know, they're just being consumed faster than they can be currently replaced. But Trump has been kind of responding indirectly, though, saying that, you know, with announcing many of these new investments in equipment and munitions and weaponry, I mean, one of those investments is billions and dollars to increase. to production of Patriot Interceptors in order to build those inventories. So, you know, the White House is trying to take action, but while, you know, saying that they have enough, but clearly this is a concern. Greg, has this affected the ability of the United States to defend both itself and its allies and assets in the Middle East? So the Pentagon says that it can, but we have seen the deaths of 18 U.S. service members and more than 650 have now been injured. And you've got 50,000 or so troops on ships, on bases, spread throughout the region. And the U.S. it doesn't seem has ideal protection in all these places.

We've seen some hits on some bases where there may not have been systems to show. shoot down ballistic missiles or we're not able to detect drones and drones carried out lethal attacks. So it placed a very heavy demand on the U.S. in defending all of these different places that it has in the Middle East and Iran has gotten through. As we've seen here in Ukraine, where they've been able to penetrate Russian defenses with drones, the Iranians have learned lessons from that, and they've managed to penetrate U.S. facilities. It's very difficult to have every defensive system at every base when you have so many places to protect in the Middle East. All right, well, we're going to take another break.

And when we get back, can't let it go. And we're back, and it's time for can't let it go, the part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Greg, you get to go first. Okay. I want to talk about Ukraine. Ukrainian gas stations. I'm pretty familiar with them because when you come to Ukraine from Poland, you have to drive 8, 10, 12 hours to get to Kiev because there are no commercial flights in Ukraine since the war broke out. And these Ukrainian gas stations along the highway, they're new,

they're pleasant, and they're attached to food markets that are sort of a cross between 7-Eleven and Starbucks. You can actually get a decent sandwich and a good cup of coffee. I'll add that the bathrooms are clean. So you actually don't mind stopping on these long cross-country drives. But very recently, the Russians have started systematically bombing ordinary gas stations in Ukraine. Now, this is especially true near the front lines in the eastern part of the country, not in the western part of the country where I came in. But these gas stations used to be very nice places to stop. You could stretch your legs.

You could get a bite and feel re-energized as you got back in and headed for several more hours on the road. Now there are potential death traps. And if an air raid alarm goes off, people get away as fast as they can from these gas stations. Yeah, I remember going to some of those gas stations. And literally, some of the staff would be dressed in, like, ties and fine dining you know, outfits. It was, it's amazing. Wow. I mean, so are you telling me that this is, that these Ukrainian gas stations are putting sheets in Wawa to the test? Oh, absolutely. No, absolutely. And now they've become targets. Yes, yes. I mean, the ones that are left. Yeah. I mean, they're,

they're disappearing pretty quickly. But no, they were, they're very pleasant places to visit. Way to bring it down, Greg. Way, way to. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I mean, I know. War is real. I'm going to go next, and I hope that I will bring up the mood a little bit. You all may have heard about Jimothy, the raccoon, who is this raccoon that is weirdly shaped and took the Internet by storm a few weeks ago. Honestly, I don't know what the big deal is. But Jimothy is the peg for an article in the Washington Post written by a Professor Emeritus of Zooliol. And it helped me discover a wonderful thing that I'm now going to quiz you on, which is which president of the United States had a pet raccoon at the White House. Do you know this, Greg?

You know, Theodore Roosevelt went on these great hunting expeditions at safaris. That would be a good guess. But I'm guessing. Johnson? That is not a good guess. Going to have to tell us, Okay, I'm going to have to give you the answer. It was Theodore Roosevelt.

No. It was President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace Coolidge who kept a pet raccoon named Rebecca. And if I had a raccoon, maybe I would name it Rebecca. It has a nice ring to it, Rebecca the raccoon. Man, raccoon scare me. I had a bad experience with a group of raccoons on a beach in Costa Rica that I will always I will always remember. So I think Calvin Coolidge can keep his raccoons.

Franco, what can't you let go of? Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like you were bringing it down there, too, considering my fear of raccoons. I mean, people, like, Jimothy was beloved. I'm so sorry. All right. What can I not let go? You know, I keep talking about the World Cup. And I know that you guys talked about the World Cup.

And even though everybody is stopping, while, you know, while that kind of that storyline is going away, we are so fortunate slash sadden to hear that FIFA has another controversy to keep the narrative going. And I'm talking about FIFA, which obviously runs the World Cup and its announcement or its proposal to sell stakes in competitions, including the World Cup, to private investors. It's just created this whole world win of controversy with, you know, members, government. bodies from Europe, you know, saying that they will boycott FIFA competitions. We're talking 55 members saying boycott FIFA competitions, including the World Cup. The North American Caribbean Conference have also been kind of rejecting this idea. The Asian Confederation has also been talking about this. It's just this huge level of controversy surrounding the leader of FIFA Gianni

Infantino, who, you know, is no stranger to. controversy. You thought that the VAR reviews during the games were controversial. This is just taking it another level. I mean, controversy in FIFA is perhaps almost as global as the World Cup itself. Well, I have a raccoon tie-in for you. Oh, gosh. Soccer star Erling Holland from Norway came upon a taxidermied raccoon holding some sort of a liquor bottle. And he loved it so much, he brought it home from the World Cup. Yeah, those images of him walking off the plane with that thing were pretty fascinating. And I will say they scared me too, just like your story earlier. Oh, no, we're bringing it back down. All right, that is all for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Maturi. Our producers are

Casey Morel and Brea Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Ben Swayze and Dana Farrington. Tamara Keith, I cover politics. I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.