POLITICS: Trump’s slush fund is collapsing under the weight of his own humiliations

Senators Who No Longer Want to Vote Blindly

The turning point came from a handful of Republican senators whom one wouldn’t necessarily have expected to be on the front lines: Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. But also, more surprisingly, figures like John Cornyn of Texas, a long-time loyal ally of the president. Starting last month, all of them began to publicly voice their reservations. Not head-on. Not by organizing an open rebellion. Simply by asking questions. By demanding assurances. By calling for hearings. And in American parliamentary parlance, requesting hearings on a presidential proposal is already a form of polite sabotage. Senate committees began demanding documents. Congressional legal staff have produced damning technical memos. The Government Accountability Office, an independent body tasked with overseeing public spending, published a preliminary analysis suggesting that the proposal would violate several provisions of the Appropriations Act.

But the hardest blow came from the House of Representatives. Several Republican lawmakers from moderate districts—known as “frontline members”—have made it clear to party leadership that they would not vote for a bill creating this fund. Not because they fundamentally disapprove of the idea, but because they know their constituents would not understand it. In a climate where inflation remains high, public services are crumbling, and the middle class is struggling to make ends meet, asking ordinary Americans to tolerate the creation of a presidential fund financed by corporate fines is politically untenable. Electoral calculations weighed heavier than personal loyalty. And perhaps that, at its core, is the real lesson of this episode: even in a party as tightly controlled as the 2026 Republican Party, poll numbers ultimately speak louder than orders from the Oval Office.

Conservative Lawyers Enter the Fray

Alongside the political resistance, another form of opposition has emerged—more discreet but perhaps more decisive—that of conservative legal scholars. Figures historically linked to the Federalist Society, the influential network that has shaped the American judiciary for the past forty years, have begun signing op-eds and publishing critical analyses. The proposed presidential fund, they write in essence, violates the very spirit of American constitutionalism. It transforms the executive branch into a parallel treasury. It abolishes the separation of powers. It turns the presidency into a clan-based chiefdom. These criticisms, coming from men and women who voted for Trump, who defended Trump, and who appointed Trump’s judges, carry weight in the debate. They provide intellectual cover for Republican resistance in Congress. They argue: no, it is not a betrayal to block this proposal; on the contrary, it is an act of loyalty to the founding principles.

This legal front has produced an unexpected side effect. Several law firms representing major corporations potentially affected by the proposal have also expressed skepticism. Not out of concern for democracy, but out of prudential calculation. A company negotiating a fine with the DOJ wants to know where its money is going. It wants a predictable, legally watertight process, shielded from shifts in the president’s mood. A discretionary fund, managed by a president known for his unpredictability, is a nightmare for corporate legal departments. Lobbyists for major corporations—who are usually silent or supportive of White House initiatives—have quietly put the brakes on the plan. By losing the implicit support of the business community, the proposal has lost some of its chances of survival.

There is something almost tragic about the fact that the first lines of defense against this drift come from private interests rather than public principles. But that’s the way it is. In a weakened democracy, sometimes it is cold, hard calculations that save what values have failed to defend. I would prefer it to be otherwise. But I’ll take what comes.

A Series of Setbacks That Changes the Game

This defeat over the presidential fund did not come out of the blue. It adds to a series of recent setbacks that are gradually shifting the balance of power in Washington. On the legal front, several of the administration’s flagship executive orders have been blocked by federal courts in recent months. Mass deportations, restrictions on birthright citizenship, and certain protectionist economic measures have all been partially suspended. On the diplomatic front, negotiations intended to quickly resolve several international conflicts are stalling or moving backward. On the economic front, inflation persists, the labor market is showing signs of fatigue, and consumer confidence is eroding. Each indicator tells a story of broken promises. And in a presidency built on constant performance and the image of an absolute winner, these accumulated failures come at a real political cost.

Polls confirm this erosion. The president’s approval rating has dropped by several points since early fall. Independents—the voters who swing U.S. elections—are expressing growing weariness. Even within the Republican base, there are signs of concern. Not rejection. Not a break. Just fatigue. A sense of saturation. Too many executive orders, too much controversy, too much noise. In this context, launching a project as controversial as the creation of a presidential fund had become politically risky. The White House’s most pragmatic advisors understood this before anyone else. Several corroborating sources indicate that the plan was quietly put on hold following an internal recommendation, even before Republican resistance came out into the open. The defeat is therefore twofold: political in Congress, and strategic at the very heart of the executive branch itself.

The Presidential Machine Confronted by Its Own Contradictions

What is at stake here goes far beyond the fate of a bill or an administrative mechanism. What is at stake is the very nature of Trump’s second term. The first term was marked by a kind of constant improvisation, a productive chaos, where progress was made through executive orders and tweets without any real doctrine. The second term, conceived and prepared by teams that were more organized, more ideological, and more determined, was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be methodical. Strategic. Capable of bringing about lasting change to American institutions. The presidential fund proposal embodied this ambition: to reconfigure federal financial flows to place them directly at the service of presidential power. Its defeat reveals a limitation. The Trumpist plan for 2026 remains more brutal than coherent. More bombastic than effective.

The intellectual architects of this presidency—those who drafted the transition documents, those who dreamed of a radical transformation of the administrative state—are seeing their ambitions clash with American institutional reality. The Constitution, despite all its fragilities and despite all the attacks it faces, continues to offer resistance. The checks and balances, despite their weakening, still play their role. Economic actors, despite their opportunism, refuse to endorse the most dangerous excesses. The America of 2026 is no longer quite the America of 2017, but it is not yet the autocracy that some fear and others hope for. It finds itself in an unstable, shifting limbo, where each episode like this one redraws the boundaries of what is possible.

I look at this political landscape with a mixture of relief and anxiety. Relief because the worst has been averted—for now. Anxiety because the mere fact that such a proposal could have been formulated, defended, and nearly adopted speaks to a shift that is already profound. A democracy is not measured by its loud victories. It is measured by what it manages to prevent in silence.

What This Failure Tells Allies and Adversaries

The failure of the presidential fund is not confined to U.S. borders. It sends a powerful signal to both the United States’ allies and adversaries. To its European, Asian, and Latin American allies, it says this: the American system, despite its upheavals, retains self-correcting mechanisms. All is not lost. The institutions are still holding up. This is significant because, since Trump’s return, foreign ministries around the world have been in a state of anxious anticipation, wondering every day just how far things will go off the rails. Seeing the U.S. Congress block a presidential initiative is reassuring, at least in part. It allows for planning. It allows for hope. It allows for negotiations with a timeline that remains predictable.

For adversaries, the message is more complex. Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran are closely watching the internal fissures within the U.S. administration, hoping to capitalize on them. But they also see that, beyond the presidential rhetoric, the American system retains a certain resilience. This ambiguity complicates their own strategic calculations. Should they press their advantage now, while America seems distracted by its internal squabbles? Or should they wait, betting on a deeper collapse? Analyses produced by strategic research centers in the major rival capitals remain cautious. America remains unpredictable, but it has not collapsed. And this very unpredictability is becoming a major geopolitical factor, weighing on the calculations of all international actors.

The Precedent That Changes Everything Going Forward

Beyond immediate considerations, the failure of this fund sets a precedent that will weigh on future presidential initiatives. White House advisors now know they cannot push everything through. They know that certain thresholds trigger resistance, even within their own camp. This realization alters the political calculus for all future projects. The most radical ideas will be weeded out earlier. The most excessive ambitions will be tempered—not out of democratic conviction, but out of pure strategic realism. American democracy has just bought itself a little time. It’s not a resounding victory—just a reprieve. But in the current climate, a reprieve is worth a great deal.

It remains to be seen how the administration will react. Several scenarios are possible. The first is to quietly abandon the project, move on to something else, and avoid turning this failure into a public defeat. The second is to relaunch the project in a modified, more politically acceptable form, compromising on certain aspects to preserve the principle. The third, more dangerous scenario would involve bypassing Congress by using unilateral administrative measures, even if it means provoking a full-blown constitutional crisis. The signals sent by the White House in recent days remain ambiguous. The president himself has not directly commented on the project’s demise, which could mean that he is preparing a counterattack, or that he prefers to let the matter fade into obscurity. The coming weeks will reveal which of these scenarios plays out.

What I take away from this issue, beyond the tactical maneuvers, is this simple truth: democracies do not die all at once. They die through erosion, through compromise, through accumulated weariness. And they survive, sometimes, through the same mechanisms working in reverse. Through small bursts of defiance. Through quiet refusals. Through seemingly insignificant humiliations that, when added up, eventually take the shape of resistance.

Read the episode for what it really is

It would be tempting to turn this presidential failure into a defining moment, a heroic narrative, proof that American democracy can withstand anything. That would be a mistake. What we’re seeing is a respite—a pause in a broader dynamic that continues to push in a troubling direction. The balance of power among U.S. institutions remains deeply skewed. The Supreme Court, dominated by a conservative majority, continues to authorize unprecedented concentrations of executive power. Federal agencies are undergoing rapid transformation. Independent media face constant economic and legal pressure. The control of information by major digital platforms largely escapes any democratic regulation. In this landscape, blocking a presidential fund is winning a battle—not the war.

The episode, however, deserves to be commended for what it reveals. It shows that the Trumpist coalition, despite its apparent unity, contains exploitable fault lines. It shows that certain Republican elected officials, under certain conditions, can still set limits. It shows that not all conservative legal experts are willing to go along with every excess. It shows that economic actors themselves sometimes have an interest in preserving a minimum of the rule of law. These lessons are invaluable for American democratic forces, which must learn to identify potential allies—even imperfect ones, even temporary ones—in the broader battle that is unfolding. The defense of democracy will no longer be carried out by progressive forces alone. It will be carried out through strange, motley, and sometimes uncomfortable coalitions. That is the condition for its survival.

What Comes Next, and Why It Matters to Us All

Europeans, Canadians, and democracies in Asia and elsewhere cannot simply stand by and watch these American upheavals as a distant spectacle. What is playing out in Washington reverberates everywhere. The normalization of authoritarian excesses in the United States encourages similar movements in Hungary, Italy, Turkey, India, and Argentina. Conversely, every act of democratic resistance in the U.S., however modest, gives courage to the forces elsewhere that are fighting against the same drifts. America remains, despite everything, a testing ground. What is experimented with there is exported. What is blocked there inspires. The defeat of this presidential fund must therefore be viewed from a global perspective, as a signal sent to all the world’s fragile democracies.

We must continue to observe. To document. To understand. The coming months will bring their share of new presidential offensives, new executive orders, and new controversies. Each episode must be analyzed for what it reveals about the balance of power. Each act of resistance must be celebrated without triumphalism. Each democratic setback must be mourned without excessive dramatization. It is through this patient vigilance, this meticulous attention, that the defense of open societies is built. The presidential fund is dead—for now. Other projects will follow. Other battles as well. And history, as always, will remember not so much the noisy defeats as the stubborn resistance of those who, at every stage, refused to give up.

I’ll conclude by thinking of all those who, in Washington and elsewhere, have spent the past few weeks poring over documents, drafting memos, calling senators, publishing analyses, reaching out to journalists, and patiently explaining why this idea was a bad one. We will never know their names. They won’t make the headlines. And yet, it is their work—accumulated, added up, multiplied—that ultimately killed this bad idea. Democracies endure thanks to these invisible figures. Always.

Signed, Jacques Pj Provost, columnist