Donald Trump hit back at Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune for his refusal to alter the rules to force a vote on the Save America Act, a sprawling bill that would upend elections for American voters in the middle of the midterm elections.
Trump delivered a strong message to Thune before reporters outside the White House on Wednesday: “You have to be a leader.”
The comments came after Trump made a full-court press on the bill, saying he would not sign any other legislation until the Save America Act reached his desk for his signature.
While the House passed a version of the bill, the Senate doesn’t have the votes, because it would need 60 votes to advance due to the filibuster rule. Conservatives who support the bill have pushed for Thune to order a so-called “talking” filibuster, which would force Democrats to take the floor to block the Save America Act.
South Dakota’s Thune said he planned to bring the bill to a vote next week, but that would mean it would fail: He doesn’t have 60 votes to overcome the filibuster rule and vote on the bill directly, and the talking filibuster is not a viable option.
“We don’t have the votes either to proceed with a filibuster or to hold one if we get one,” Thune said Tuesday at a news conference. “That’s just a mathematical function. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
Thune has said he has to be a “lucid realist” about the bill’s prospects in his chamber.
“We’re going to have the fight on the court,” Thune said. “We’re going to vote on this. I can guarantee the debate, I can guarantee the vote, but I can’t guarantee a result.”
On Wednesday, Trump said it was up to the South Dakota lawmaker to “get them” anyway, referring to votes he doesn’t have.
Trump’s demands for the Save America Act also mean it would have to return to the House for an additional vote because he wants to add a number of measures not included in the House-passed version, including a ban on mail-in voting, a ban on gender-affirming surgeries for minors and a ban on trans women from playing women’s sports.
Some of those new provisions, and some in the existing bill, are not to the liking of all Republicans. Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said he did not approve of the ban on voting by mail.
“I don’t want the federal government to tell me I can’t vote by mail or absentee,” Tillis said, according to Politico. “There’s nothing wrong with voting by mail if you have the right standards.”
Trump has continued to criticize the Save America Act and insist on its passage while repeating lies that Democrats have been stealing elections and that undocumented people are voting in large numbers.
“THE SAVE AMERICA ACT is by far the most popular bill of its kind ever introduced in Congress!” he wrote in Truth Social on Tuesday.
Among the provisions of the Save America Act: the requirement to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote (such as a passport or birth certificate); a voter identification requirement to cast a vote; a prohibition on states from registering people to vote unless they provide such documentation at the time of registration; requirements for states to ensure that only U.S. citizens register; a demand that states turn over their voter lists to the federal government; and a subsidy for private parties to sue election officials if someone registers to vote without presenting documentary proof of citizenship, as well as possible criminal sanctions.
The bill would disrupt election processes at any time, but would cause particular chaos in the middle of an ongoing election cycle. The midterm elections are already underway and several states have already held their primaries.
Voting rights advocates have said the bill would effectively prevent millions of Americans from voting: Only about half have a valid U.S. passport and other documents, such as birth certificates, may not match people’s names. They have drawn attention to the impacts on married women who changed their names whose documents may not be updated, saying the law could cause additional obstacles to voting for them.
The Save America Act is influencing the midterm elections as conservative activists express their displeasure with Thune and other Republicans who have not cleared the way for the bill.
John Cornyn, the Texas Republican fighting to keep his U.S. Senate seat against state Attorney General Ken Paxton, backtracked on his previous support for the filibuster to pledge his support for the bill and hopefully secure the president’s support in the process.
In an op-ed published in the New York Post on Wednesday, Cornyn said Democrats are “weaponizing Senate rules” to prevent voter ID legislation from moving forward.
“After careful consideration, I support any changes to Senate rules that may be necessary so we can get the SAVE America Act and national security funding past Democratic obstruction, through the Senate and to the President’s desk for his signature,” Cornyn wrote.
