Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) isn’t too happy about President Donald Trump’s $2 billion settlement with the Justice Department after he suspended his lawsuit against the IRS.
While speaking on the Senate floor on Monday, Schumer railed against the settlement saying, “As working families shorten their grocery lists as they struggle to make ends meet, Donald Trump has added a nearly two-billion-dollar slush fund for his MAGA allies and January 6th insurrectionists to his wish list of pet projects he wants to fund with taxpayer dollars.”
The lawmaker stated that the president “is shaking hands with himself in order to fund his insurrectionist army to the tune of two billion dollars.”
He must have thought that line was clever because he repeated it twice on the floor and even in a post on X.
Trump is shaking hands with himself in order to fund his insurrectionist army to the tune of billions.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 18, 2026
Of all the corrupt things he has done, this is one of the most depraved. https://t.co/FfKFVSwgZ7
Schumer slammed Trump for pardoning “violent insurrectionists who assaulted your Capitol to overturn your votes” and said the president “wants to give them your hard-earned tax dollars as a reward.”
This settlement with the IRS is a farce.
Trump sued his own government. He’s the president and he sued the government. He asked for $10 billion. The gall of this man. And then, Trump’s own [Justice] Department, with his own appointed attorney general, settled with Trump. Trump settled with Trump. And now Trump gets a nearly $2 billion slush fund as part of that settlement. And what is he going to do with it? He’s going to reward his own allies, loyalists, and insurrectionists. How crooked can it be? How perverted, how slanted, how far away from American ideals.
No president, none, should be able to use the Department of Justice as a personal rewards program for the people who helped him attack our democracy. Again America, he sued America for $10 billion, and then he settled with himself. He said “Okay, I’ll settle for $2 billion and then I can use that to aid my cronies.” America, you’re listening? What is this guy doing? We’ve never seen anything like this, even in the worst and most corrupt administrations we’ve had we’ve never seen anything like this.
Schumer’s comments were a response to the news that Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for allowing his tax returns to be leaked to the press. In exchange, the DOJ will create a $1.76 billion fund to compensate victims of the Democrats’ effort to weaponize the government against them.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy Townhall's conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member