Trump uses Supreme Court ruling to push for SAVE America Act, but admits it’s ‘probably not going to happen’ 

President Donald Trump seized on a major U.S. Supreme Court loss for Republicans Monday to push again for the SAVE America Act, a sweeping anti-voting bill. But he acknowledged that passage of the measure is “probably not going to happen.”

Trump said that he wanted the SAVE America Act added to a pending housing bill, but conceded that Senate Republican opposition could block it. 

“I’d like to have the SAVE America Act added on, but that’s probably not going to happen, because we have four Republican senators, maybe five, that just won’t vote for it,” Trump said.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward, preserving grace periods in Mississippi and 13 other states. The 5-4 decision rejected the GOP’s argument that federal Election Day laws require mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day. 

Trump, who has spent years making false claims about mail-in voting, immediately tried to turn the court’s decision into fuel for his party’s stalled voting restrictions, even as he voted by mail himself earlier this year.

“Because of the mail-in ballot ruling — which was a little bit surprising, gives people more time to vote illegally, let’s say — but the SAVE Act is even more important, and that’s the right — you have to be a citizen of our country, okay?” Trump said. “The ruling, which a lot of people were waiting for, was a ruling that was — I think it was very detrimental to honest elections. But it is what it is. Basically, they’re keeping it a little bit the way it is now. They may have a little bit of a restriction based on the wording.”

Trump also wrote on Truth Social that “it is more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” while urging five Republican Senate holdouts to back the measure.

Trump went further, accusing anyone who opposes his demands of supporting fraud and describing the fight over the bill in apocalyptic terms. 

“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump wrote. “In a time when there is a powerful Communist Movement taking place in our Country, one more dangerous than World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or September 11th, all Dumocrats, and our five Republican Senate Hold Outs, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and Mitch McConnell must vote to SAVE OUR COUNTRY.”

The SAVE America Act would require strict ID and proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. Trump is also demanding that Congress add sweeping mail-in ballot restrictions to the measure, including a ban on mail-in ballots.

Voting rights advocates have warned that documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements can block eligible voters who lack easy access to passports, birth certificates or other paperwork.

But even as Trump escalated his pressure campaign, he appeared to admit the bill remains in deep trouble. The measure passed the House but has stalled in the Senate, where Democrats oppose it and Republicans lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

Trump said he wanted the SAVE America Act added to a pending housing bill but acknowledged that it is “probably not going to happen.”

The admission undercut the urgency of Trump’s own push. After losing at the Supreme Court, he is trying to use a ruling that protects timely mailed ballots to revive one of Republicans’ biggest federal voting restriction pushes — and conceding, at least for now, that he does not have votes to do it.