Newsmax: SAVE America Act’s likely failure ‘is why people need guns in this country’

As the SAVE America Act is debated on the Senate floor and faces likely defeat, a Newsmax host suggested on air that its failure is justification for Americans to arm themselves.

“This is why people need guns in this country, because a government is willing to go 80% against the country,” Newsmax host Carl Higbie said Tuesday. “It’s unbelievable.”

Higbie made the comment during an interview with Matt Schlapp, chair of the influential Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the most powerful gatherings in Republican politics. 

Schlapp did not push back on the remark and instead echoed frustration with Senate rules — particularly the filibuster — that are expected to block the bill.

“So in the old days they used to have real filibusters. Filibuster means talk a bill to death,” Schlapp said. “And you got to love the Senate, they decided that that would be too much work. So you just have to threaten to talk a bill to death, and that kills the bill.”

Higbie called for Republicans to bypass the filibuster entirely.

“I think that they should just blow the filibuster and do this whole thing anyway,” Higbie said.

The exchange reflects mounting frustration on the right as the SAVE America Act — a sweeping bill that would disenfranchise millions of eligible voters — is expected to fail in the Senate, where Republicans lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

In recent days, Republican lawmakers and activists have intensified calls to overhaul Senate rules to force the bill’s passage, even as Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has made clear the votes are not there.

The suggestion that Americans need firearms in response to a legislative outcome marks a sharp escalation in rhetoric.