Welcome to The Beat. I'm Melissa Murray in for Ari Melburgh, and we start tonight with a major loss for Donald Trump.

MS Now can report tonight that the Trump administration plans to abandon its highly controversial $1.8 billion slush fund.

This news comes from a senior White House official.

Axios was the first to report this story, citing two senior administration officials. One of them told Axios, quote,

It's dead for now. In a tweet, the Trump DOJ attributed the about face to a recent court ruling

temporarily blocking the fund.

The tweet explains that although the department, quote, disagrees strongly with the court

decision that under no circumstances may the DOJ proceed with the fund, the department will

abide by the court's ruling. We should emphasize that the tweet was a bit misleading. The court ruling,

which was issued last Friday, temporarily block the fund while a case challenging it played out

in the court. It was not a decision on the fund's merits. MS now can also report tonight that Speaker Mike Johnson's meeting with Trump

today played a key role in the decision to abandon the fund. A source told MS now that Johnson

helped convince Trump to drop the fund in order to create a path forward for ICE and Border Patrol

funding legislation in the Senate.

Earlier today, Politico reported that this abrupt shift was in the offing.

Its reporting noted that the Republican's agenda was in limbo,

as their immigration enforcement bill remained stalled because of concerns with the fund.

Politico reported, quote, Senate Republicans delayed passage of the immigration package last month

as a critical mass of their members were prepared to support Senate Democrats' amendments

to narrow or nix the Justice Department's fund.

Well, that pressure on Trump seemingly worked.

The slush fund criticism was a rare instance of bipartisan backlash.

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