Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization fund’ is a problem for the GOP
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, Supreme Court and justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.
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
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. |
| 0:08.4 | I'm Carrie Johnson. I covered the Supreme Court in the Justice Department. |
| 0:11.8 | And I'm Frank O'Donias. I cover the White House. And we are recording this podcast at 12.19 p.m. |
| 0:16.8 | Eastern Time on Tuesday, June 2nd. And today, we're talking about new developments with President |
| 0:21.9 | Trump's controversial nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. So, Carrie, in the last |
| 0:28.7 | couple of days, two separate courts have weighed in on this fund. I want to start with the order |
| 0:33.1 | that came down from a judge in Virginia late last week. What happened there? So in that case in Virginia, |
| 0:38.3 | a former Justice Department prosecutor, a professor, and several other organizations and |
| 0:45.0 | nonprofits that basically are somehow crosswise with the Trump administration sued over this |
| 0:51.0 | nearly $2 billion fund that the president has created or wants to create, |
| 0:57.2 | they basically say that because they in some ways have been victims of the administration, |
| 1:02.7 | they should be able to apply for this fund, but it seems like the criteria will not apply to |
| 1:08.1 | them. And they sued in this federal court. A judge put this fund on pause. She basically wants to be sure that for the next couple of weeks, no taxpayer money gets dispersed to anybody who might have applied to this fund already. While she can take a measure of the case and make sure that it's a lawful situation. |
| 1:31.7 | Okay, so that's case number one. Case number two is based in Florida. What can you tell us |
| 1:35.2 | happening there? The Florida case involves a lawsuit that President Trump brought against his |
| 1:40.4 | own government. This is the case where Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service |
| 1:44.6 | because of the leak of his tax returns several years ago. And Trump had asked for $10 billion. |
| 1:51.8 | When it came time for Trump to show up in court right before that, his lawyers withdrew the |
| 1:58.8 | case and said that they had a settlement. And the settlement, |
| 2:03.0 | of course, was the creation of this fund. The judge thought that was unusual, but dismissed |
| 2:09.0 | the case. And something wild happened, something like 35 retired or former federal judges weighed |
| 2:16.2 | in. They told this judge in Florida that she might still |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.