It's Saturday, May 23rd. I'm Ali Valshi. The Trump administration is trying to contain the fallout from the president's latest corruption scandal, and it is not working.

Outrage over Trump's so-called settlement with the IRS, which aims to hand over cash payments to

insurrectionists, is roiling the Republican Party to the point of open revolt that is endangering

much of Trump's policy agenda. The settlement, if one can even call it that, because it wasn't

approved by a judge or kind of by anyone, really, other than Trump and his personal lawyer, who now conveniently is the

acting attorney general of the United States of America. This settlement is being sold as a

resolution to a $10 billion lawsuit that Donald Trump, the citizen, filed against the IRS,

an agency that Donald Trump, the president, has fundamental control over. It was announced on Monday

by the Justice Department that is now run by Donald Trump's aforementioned own former defense

attorney, Todd Blanche. The plan is that Trump would drop the $10 billion demand, while a $1.776 billion

so-called anti-weaponization fund would be created to compensate

people who claim that they were targeted by the Biden administration. $1.77 billion. Get it? 1776?

The recipients of your taxpayer dollars could include the nearly 1,600 people charged,

convicted, and then

pardoned for their roles in the January 6th assault on the Capitol, many of whom are reportedly

already preparing their applications and anticipating major payouts. Again, I remind you that will come

from your taxpayer dollars. Perhaps Donald Trump asking Republicans to help him pay off the very people who sent them

running and hiding for their lives in service of stealing the election for him was finally a bridge

too far because the slush fund has not gone over well with elected Republicans.

By Thursday, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, I'm going to say this every time I say

his name because it's super relevant, served as Trump's own personal defense attorney in three of the criminal

cases that were brought against him.

...