The sights and sounds near Rep. Santos’ office

President Donald Trump conceded Thursday he may pull his own attorney general nominee rather than give two outgoing Republican senators what they are demanding.

Trump made the admission on Truth Social after the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination Wednesday night. The vote was canceled when it became clear two Republicans would block it.

Those two senators — Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — are leaving Congress at the end of the year.

"Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it!" Trump wrote 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," Trump wrote.

Trump also attacked both senators directly, calling them men "whose political careers have been ended by my action" — a reference to his decision not to endorse them. He added that "both Cornyn and Tillis voted for Merrick Garland," invoking former Attorney General Merrick Garland, a name Republicans cite as a symbol of Democratic overreach.

On Capitol Hill Thursday morning, Cornyn told reporters the situation had taken a turn for the worse. Asked whether Blanche could be confirmed before the August recess, he said the odds were against it.

"It's looking doubtful," Cornyn told reporters, according to NBC News congressional reporter Laura Weiss.

Cornyn said talks with Blanche had been "very constructive" and that he believed a deal was close Tuesday night. But by Thursday morning, something had shifted.

"Other people intervening," he said. He told NBC News congressional correspondent Julie Tsirkin he did not know whether the president himself was standing in the way.

At the heart of the standoff is a settlement Trump's Department of Justice reached with the Internal Revenue Service. The deal granted Trump and his family immunity from tax audits and created a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who said they had been targeted by the government for political reasons.

The fund was later abandoned, but Cornyn wants that abandonment in writing — and wants the audit immunity narrowed so it does not cover future tax filings, according to MS NOW.

"All I want them to do is to confirm what he said in his sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee, with regard not only to the weaponization fund, but also who is protected from future audits and what agencies of the federal government are bound by the release," Cornyn told reporters, according to CBS News.

The Department of Justice, Cornyn said, had not delivered. "They've simply refused to cooperate," he said, according to The Hill.

As of Thursday morning, Cornyn said he was waiting on a DOJ response to his latest offer and had no meetings or calls scheduled with the White House or the Department of Justice.

CNN analyst Andrew McCabe on Tuesday pointed out that the Department of Justice never responded to President Donald Trump's IRS lawsuit — and how that could impact Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination.

The former deputy director of the FBI told CNN anchor Kasie Hunt that, as Blanche's nomination remains in limbo ahead of Thursday's vote, further questions about Trump's former personal attorney have come to light.

"Let's remember, there essentially was never really a true lawsuit here," McCabe said. "The president sued the IRS for $10 billion. The Department of Justice never even answered the complaint. So, there were never two opposing parties. The Justice Department never stood up and defended the United States in the way that it did in every other suit brought by the same leak from the same person."

This was unusual, McCabe explained.

"And because of that oddity, that's a very suspicious decision on the part of people like Todd Blanche and others," he said. "The lack of a true controversy meant that the entire thing was about to get dismissed. Before that could happen, they entered into these agreements. One of them, of course, created the weaponization fund, and the second one essentially granted complete immunity forever to Donald Trump, his family members and businesses."

McCabe described the situation further.

"It was basically a giveaway from the Department of Justice to the president," McCabe said. "How this thing stands or was ever conceived — I have no idea. I've been around many, many settlements of criminal matters, some of which involved IRS criminal matters, and have never seen any language like this. I think it's absolutely unprecedented and an incredibly bad idea."

The IRS settlement became a sticking point for some Republican senators during Blanche's confirmation hearing. On Tuesday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said there is no deal on Blanche's confirmation because of the settlement and the so-called anti-weaponization fund, Politico reported.