Trump again avoids Lindsey Graham questions to push SAVE America Act

By Natalie Hausmann

UNITED STATES - JUNE 4: Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S. Dak., left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., walk to the Senate chamber in the U.S. Capitol during the Senate's reconcilition vote-a-rama on Thursday, June 4, 2026. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

President Donald Trump dominated a Fox interview Monday with a lengthy monologue pushing the SAVE America Act.   

The anti-voting measure does not have enough votes to pass in the U.S. Senate. But that didn’t stop the president from rehashing it today when Fox and Friends host Lawrence Jones pressed Trump on the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) recent death over the weekend. 

“Terminating the filibuster, which is the single smartest thing you could do because then you’d get everything, you know, that’s bigger,” Trump said, using his time on air to advocate for the bill he has named his priority.

Trump called the bill, which would restrict access to voting for millions of Americans, “very simple,” and “nice and easy.”

For months, voting rights experts have said the opposite: The bill would not only make it more difficult for people – especially disabled voters and recently naturalized citizens – to cast their ballots, but also create a chilling effect that intimidates people from trying to vote at all.

It’s at least the third time in 24 hours that Trump has capitalized on Graham’s death to prop up his unsuccessful voter suppression bill. 

Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday that his last phone call with the late senator was about the SAVE America Act. Later on Meet the Press, Trump said Graham was “pushing the SAVE America Act like crazy,” shortly before his unexpected death.

As Jones sought to interject Trump’s Monday rant, the president spoke over him and bragged about calling the U.S. Attorney and FBI to ensure the far-right California gubernatorial candidate, Steve Hilton, made it to the general election.

Like Trump, Hilton is also a proponent of voter ID  — a core tenet of the SAVE America Act, along with documentary proof-of-citizenship to vote and restrictive mail voting regulations.

As he has for weeks, Trump falsely claimed elections across California, including the mayoral race in Los Angeles, were “very dishonest.”

“What they did to that guy [Pratt] was unbelievable, he works so hard,” Trump said. “And they found millions of ballots and they took the election away from him.”

The Trump-backed reality television actor, Spenser Pratt, lost a bid for Los Angeles mayor in June after running on no prior political experience in the deep blue city. Trump’s own Department of Justice debunked claims of cheating.