Good morning, this is Really American. It is Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Todd Blanche went to the Senate to become Attorney General and spent the morning explaining why he told Trump “I love you, sir.”
The confirmation hearing Washington has been waiting for finally arrived, and it delivered. Dick Durbin looked Todd Blanche in the eye and called him Trump’s personal attorney. Sheldon Whitehouse asked, out loud, whether the FBI Director is drinking on the job. Two Republican senators are wavering, and either one of them can kill this nomination in committee. And while all of that unfolded, Trump quietly scheduled a prime-time address for Thursday night to relitigate the 2020 election he lost six years ago. It is all below.
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DURBIN TO BLANCHE: “TRUMP’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY”
Sen. Dick Durbin unloaded on Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche at his confirmation hearing Wednesday, accusing him of serving Donald Trump’s personal interests instead of the Constitution.
Durbin hit Blanche on the Epstein files, blasting the Justice Department for sloppy redactions that exposed the personal information of survivors while the names of powerful Epstein associates stayed shielded from public view. Several of Epstein’s accusers sat in the Senate gallery watching. Blanche refused to meet with them personally, offering to send a staffer instead.
Then Durbin turned to the IRS settlement, and Blanche walked straight into it. Pressed on the deal that wiped away scrutiny of the Trump family’s past tax returns, Blanche defended it as routine. “As part of the settlement between the IRS and President Trump and some of his family and his organization, as is typical where there is a settlement, part of the settlement included release of any past audits,” Blanche said. Durbin’s response cut through the room. “It’s hard to explain that nobody is above the law when that type of document was signed by you.”
Think about what Blanche just admitted under oath. The nation’s top law enforcement officer personally signed a deal releasing the sitting president, his family, and his business from past IRS audits. And he called it typical. There is nothing typical about the Justice Department settling a lawsuit brought by the president who appointed you, on terms that protect that president’s money.
Then Durbin went for the throat. “In less than 18 months at the Department of Justice, you’ve shown you’re still President Trump’s personal attorney,” Durbin said. “Your tenure can be summed up in the four words you said, ‘I love you, sir,’ to Trump.” He told Blanche the nation deserves an Attorney General who loves the Constitution more than any single president.
Blanche did not help his own case. Asked about his relationship with Trump, he answered “I’m his lawyer” before catching himself and correcting it to “was,” as the Washington Post reported from the hearing room.
The Attorney General runs the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country. Durbin just laid out, on the record, that this one works for one man. Remember who that agency is supposed to work for. You.
BLANCHE’S NOMINATION HANGS BY TWO VOTES
Todd Blanche cannot afford to lose a single Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and right now at least two of them are not sold.
Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis have both raised alarms about Blanche’s deal to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS. Per the Washington Post, a federal judge ruled Monday that the agreement was an “improper” exercise in self-dealing and an abuse of the court process. The deal shielded Trump, his family, and his businesses from scrutiny of their past tax returns. It also originally included a $1.8 billion payout fund for people who claim they were politically prosecuted, roughly the size of the ATF’s entire annual budget, with money potentially flowing to convicted January 6 attackers.
Blanche claims the fund is dead. But Cornyn cornered him Wednesday on one inconvenient fact. Blanche has refused to put that promise in writing, and the fund remains part of the Trumps’ signed agreement with the Justice Department.
Cornyn says Blanche’s answers this week will decide his vote. If either he or Tillis flips, the nomination dies in committee before it ever reaches the Senate floor.
Two senators from Trump’s own party hold this nomination in their hands. Call it what it is. Even Republicans can see what this man did with your Justice Department. The question is whether they have the spine to act on it.
IS KASH PATEL DRINKING ON THE JOB?
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse used his time Wednesday to ask the question nobody else in the room would touch. How long does Blanche intend to put up with Kash Patel?
Whitehouse rattled off the FBI Director’s greatest hits. The private airplane jaunts. The travel that looks suspiciously like vacations, complete with snorkeling, the Olympics, and visits to his girlfriend. Then he asked directly: “Are you confident he’s not drinking on the job? Do you vouch for him? Are you willing to look at whether he lied to this committee?”
“That’s an extraordinarily obnoxious question, senator,” Blanche snapped, before insisting he has “full faith” in Patel, Raw Story reported.
Here is why that exchange matters. Patel just dispatched hundreds of FBI agents to Atlanta to dig through 2020 election files instead of chasing actual criminals. The man running the FBI faces questions about drinking on the job, and the man who wants to run the Justice Department calls the question rude instead of answering it.
Your tax dollars pay for the FBI Director’s plane. His job is your safety. Nobody in this administration will even ask whether he is doing it sober.
TRUMP’S PRIME-TIME 2020 REVENGE SPEECH
Trump plans a prime-time address Thursday night to argue the 2020 election was compromised, six years after he lost it and every recount, audit, and court review upheld the result.
The speech will push claims that China accessed U.S. voter data, plus findings about Venezuela. The Washington Post obtained an internal FBI memo showing Patel dispatched hundreds of agents to review 700 files in Atlanta by July 17. Trump has spent years falsely claiming Fulton County stole the election from him.
One problem. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in March 2021 that no foreign interference altered a single vote or manipulated a single machine in 2020. Trump’s own government already investigated this and rejected it. Now his FBI, his DOJ, and his intelligence office are re-running the investigation until it produces the answer he wants.
The timing is not subtle. Trump just disbanded the bipartisan commission that helps states run elections, signed orders restricting mail ballots, and demanded Congress pass new voting restrictions before the midterms. Courts have blocked most of it.
This speech is the opening act for the midterms. Trump is building the case, right now, to reject any election he loses this November. Believe him the first time.
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— The Really American Team
