Trump repeats demands GOP pass anti-voting SAVE America Act, despite losing recent votes

President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress have not given up on demanding passage of the SAVE America Act, a sweeping package of voting restrictions. 

In a pair of social media posts over the weekend, Trump threatened to veto the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) if SAVE were not included in the legislation. FISA allows U.S. intelligence agencies to surreptitiously intercept foreign nationals’ communications. 

“The Dumocrats want FISA because that’s what they used to go after me for three years during my First Term!” Trump wrote in one of the posts. “I’m against FISA if it doesn’t come with The Save America Act (Full version!) firmly attached to it.”

Trump also claimed last week that the Pentagon wanted to see the legislation included in a $350 billion military spending package Republicans are looking to pass this summer through the budget reconciliation process. On Fox Business Monday, Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) said the reconciliation measure would include “election integrity.”

Despite the president’s statements, there is little reason to believe that Republicans can finally enact a version of the SAVE America Act. The measure, which the House passed in February, combines election denialism with trans panic into a tight package of MAGA’s most divisive social stances.

If enacted, it would require voters to show documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, ban no-excuse mail-in ballots, require photo ID to vote, and additionally prohibit trans athletes in women’s sports and gender-affirming care for minors. 

Though SAVE is predicated on claims of widespread illegal voting, multiple studies and voter registration roll audits have shown that exceedingly few noncitizens even attempt to register, let alone actually vote. It is illegal for noncitizens to cast ballots, and those that do face prison time and deportation. As such, SAVE would burden nearly every voter to prevent the miniscule amount — 0.000007% by some estimates — of votes cast by noncitizens.

Since the Senate GOP first tried to pass the bill in the spring, the SAVE America Act has lost support among the party. When the chamber voted to take up the bill in March, only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) sided with Democrats against it.

But in another vote earlier this month, which would have added the SAVE America Act to a reconciliation package that was used to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, four Senate Republicans — Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — voted against it. 

Attempts to add SAVE America Act to a reconciliation bill, which allows the Senate to avoid the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold pass legislation by a simple majority, would be likely doomed even if enough Republicans voted in support.  Reconciliation bills must be budgetary in nature and provisions that the Senate Parliamentarian deems non-budgetary are subject to being stripped out of the final package. 

While Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough hasn’t yet needed to offer her ruling on the SAVE America Act, experts widely believe she would fairly apply the law to exclude it. That has led Trump to repeatedly call for Senate Republicans to fire MacDonough and replace her with a loyalist.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has rejected those demands.

In the time since the last reconciliation vote, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a SAVE America Act cosponsor, lost his primary contest against Trump-endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). Cornyn subsequently took to X last week to urge his colleagues to drop the effort to pass the anti-voting bill, saying they “don’t have the votes.”

“[Thune] can’t change that. It is math,” Cornyn said, quote-tweeting the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). “Try focusing on Democrats instead of Republicans. Republican on Republican attacks are hurting our chances to win the majority in November.”