The standoff to confirm Todd Blanche, Trump's attorney general pick, shows no signs of ending.

President Trump on Thursday said he may temporarily withdraw his nomination of Todd Blanche to become the next attorney general in response to an ongoing standoff with two Republican senators who are promising to block Blanche's confirmation from going forward. 

Blanche has been leading the Department of Justice as acting attorney general since April, when he took over for Pam Bondi after she was fired by Trump. The president has asked the Senate to formally confirm Blanche to the role, but Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina are standing in the way. In exchange for their votes, they want Trump to agree to changes to a controversial deal that he reached with the IRS earlier this year, which he has refused to make. 

Trump said he may pull Blanche's nomination and allow him to continue working in an acting capacity until Cornyn and Tillis leave the Senate when their terms end in January. 

"Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it!" he wrote in a post on Truth Social. "He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time. … I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office."

So, what would it take for the senators to drop their blockade on Blanche? And what would it mean for him to be confirmed? Here's a look at how we got here, and what might happen next.

Who is Todd Blanche?

Blanche is an attorney who left a position at a prestigious Wall Street law firm in 2023 to become one of Trump's personal lawyers. He helped lead Trump's legal defense during multiple major cases, including the New York "hush money" case that resulted in Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts and the dismissed federal criminal case in which Trump was accused of mishandling classified documents. 

After winning reelection, Trump nominated Blanche to become deputy attorney general, the second-highest-ranking official at the Department of Justice. In that position, Blanche played a key role in some of the DOJ's most high-profile operations, including the release of documents related to investigations into disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and criminal cases against several people Trump viewed as political enemies. 

Trump tapped Blanche to lead the Justice Department as acting attorney general in April after he fired Bondi amid reports that he had become increasingly dissatisfied with the way she was running the DOJ. Blanche was a contentious pick because of his close ties to Trump and the perception among critics that he would put his loyalty to the president over his commitment to defending the Justice Department's independence. 

Earlier this month, a group of 1,200 former DOJ employees signed a letter asking the Senate to reject Blanche's nomination, arguing that his top guiding principle is "fealty to the President, not the Constitution." 

What's holding up Blanche's confirmation?

Before the full Senate can vote on Blanche's nomination, it must be advanced by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee is made up of 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats, which means that even a single "no" vote from a GOP member is enough to block Blanche's nomination from moving forward. 

Tillis and Cornyn have said they will do just that until Trump and the DOJ agree to their demands. 

What do Cornyn and Tillis want?

In May, the DOJ and the IRS reached a settlement resolving a lawsuit that Trump had filed against the tax agency over the leak of his tax returns. The deal, which was brokered by Blanche, included the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund meant to compensate people who feel they have been unfairly targeted by the federal government — a provision that critics said could apply to people who faced criminal liability for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A second provision of the settlement could also grant Trump, his family members and their businesses sweeping immunity from tax audits and, according to critics, potential criminal immunity as well, depending on how the language is interpreted. 

Cornyn and Tillis want two things: the permanent elimination of the anti-weaponization fund and strict limits on the scope of Trump's tax immunity.  

Blanche told Congress earlier this month that the fund was "dead," but conceded that the White House could attempt to revive it at some point in the future. Cornyn and Tillis say they will only end their blockade of Blanche's nomination when the fund is formally dissolved in writing. 

The senators also want Blanche to codify in writing that the deal provides Trump with immunity only for past audits, not future ones, and that it protects him only from the IRS, not any other part of the government.

The White House and the senators reportedly exchanged proposals for revisions to the deal this week, but Cornyn said the administration is refusing to make meaningful concessions. 

"Basically, I get the sense that Todd Blanche is not the problem," he told The Hill on Thursday. "It's other folks at the White House who are resistant to any changes, any additional documentation. But they need to make a fundamental decision whether they want him confirmed or not."

Can Trump wait them out?

In theory, yes. But the strategy could carry significant risk.

Cornyn and Tillis will leave the Senate in January — Tillis opted not to run for reelection, and Cornyn lost the Republican primary to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. 

Their exits won't guarantee that Blanche will sail through to confirmation early next year, though. For starters, there's a chance that Republicans could lose their Senate majority in the midterms, according to forecasters. Even if they keep it, any of the GOP senators who are still there could easily pick up where Tillis and Cornyn left off and keep his nomination trapped in committee. Finally, the confirmation would have to succeed in an up-or-down vote before the full Senate, where he would need a majority of votes to be confirmed. 

On Thursday, Cornyn suggested that other Republicans in the Senate have expressed the same concerns in private that he and Tillis have shared publicly. 

What's next?

Trump hasn't officially withdrawn Blanche's nomination yet and the two sides are still working to reach a deal to allow it to move forward. As of Thursday afternoon, they were "very near a resolution," said Laura Weiss, a congressional reporter for Punchbowl News. 

Blanche can continue running the DOJ in an acting capacity for as long as the matter remains unresolved. The Senate is scheduled to go on recess starting Aug. 8. If no progress is made before then, the earliest the matter could be settled would be mid-September.