and Latif Nasser on why we get goosebumps. But first, President Trump did not have a very great

week, politically speaking. Some in his own party are at least partially responsible for that.

First, there was the motion put forth in the Senate to kill the president's $1.8 billion fund

for people who claim to be unfairly

prosecuted by the federal government. Money of that fund was part of a bill seeking funding

to the tune of $70 billion for the administration's immigration crackdown. Opposition to the fund

meant money for one of the president's signature policy initiatives was also

in question at one point. But that's not all. Also this week, a bipartisan majority in the House

voted to end the war in Iran with a war powers resolution and Trump's endorsed candidate in the Iowa

gubernatorial race lost to a challenger and some in his own party publicly questioned

the qualifications of his pick to be the director of national intelligence. With us to talk about

all of this is Alana Shore. She's the senior Washington editor at Semaphore. Hi, Alana. Welcome back.

Thanks for having me. Let's just start with this news of the day, which is this fact that the Senate did pass this $70 billion GOP immigration bill. Now, if you can help me understand this, as I hear it, there was an amendment attached to that bill, to the immigration bill,

that included this $1.8 billion slush fund that we're talking about. That was taken out. The bill

was passed without any additional amendments regarding that slush fund. Am I right?

That's correct. It took a long time to get there. There was, I believe, more than two hours

on one particular vote in which Republicans spent trying to twist the arm of one senator

to support, you know, removing all language on the fund. And that ultimately allowed, stay with me

here, a bunch of senators who actually haven't even criticized the fund, but are in tough re-election

races to effectively vote against it. So it was a bit of political theater that took a long time.

There was an attempt to go back and put language on this as it relates to that $1.8 billion, I'm calling it a slush fund. I don't know if that's necessarily accurate. A fund to, essentially, for folks who feel they've been wronged by the federal government or persecuted, prosecuted by the federal government.

There was an attempt, was there not, to put language back on this bill that forbids it?

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