(Daily Signal)—Just hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to sign a bipartisan housing bill Wednesday, he refused to act on it until Congress sent the SAVE America Act to his desk, raising the question of why the president would take such a risk on legislation that appears unlikely to pass the Senate.
Last week, the president refused to support an extension of government spy powers—that he repeatedly called for—unless the SAVE America Act was attached to the provision. For months, Trump has pitched the voter ID bill in almost every speech and media appearance. He has not emphasized a piece of legislation to this degree since he pushed his “One Big, Big Beautiful Bill” last summer, which included tax cuts on tips, overtime, and Social Security.
Senate Republicans have repeatedly asked the president to move on from promoting the election security bill, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune saying that “we don’t have the votes,” calling it a “well-known fact around here.”
So, why is Trump still talking about the legislation?
“The SAVE America Act has always been a top priority for President Trump and it remains one,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in a statement to the Daily Signal. “This is commonsense legislation supported by the vast majority of Americans that will secure our elections for generations to come. The President knows how critical this issue is for the American people and he will not stop fighting until it is passed.”
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who sponsored the House version of the bill, told the Daily Signal that the president has the midterm elections in mind.
“I think the president is appropriately focusing on building the coalition necessary to win in November,” Roy said.
A senior GOP Senate aide said that Trump knows that he won’t be able to accomplish his priorities if Republicans lose control of Congress.
“I think he believes that if we get the SAVE America Act passed, then we hold the House, Senate, and White House for a long time,” the aide told the Daily Signal. “If you have voter ID requirements, you cut down significantly on illegal voting.”
“I think Trump is just like, well, if they [Democrats] are going to make the next two years totally miserable, then we have to keep the House and Senate, so they can’t do that,” he said, “and so we can keep getting wins for the American people.”
While the aide thinks the 2020 election plays a role in the president’s thinking, he believes Trump is “less living in the past and more living in the future.”
However, according to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Trump’s commitment to the legislation is about the 2020 election.
“President Trump had an election stolen from him in 2020—FULL STOP,” Bannon told the Daily Signal. “It’s seared into his soul that elections will continue to be stolen until we pass SAVE America.”
Another senior GOP Senate aide thinks that Trump’s effort is about more than just a “show vote” to put Democrats on the record, as he otherwise “would have been satisfied ages ago.”
“He is shooting hostages—he clearly wants the SAVE America Act on his desk for signature and is not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” the aide said.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has suggested attaching parts of the SAVE America Act to a third reconciliation bill so it can pass with 50 votes instead of the usual 60 votes. The process of reconciliation, reserved for budget-related measures, requires only a majority vote for passage, but the text first must be approved by the Senate parliamentarian. Trump, when asked about Scott’s idea by reporters on Wednesday, quickly rejected it.
Roy said that, under Scott’s plan, the bill would have to be watered down in order to pass the parliamentarian’s muster.
“The simple fact is you can’t really move the true, full SAVE America on reconciliation,” he said. “You might be able to do pieces. I’m certainly open to trying to figure that out of what you might be able to accomplish, but it’s going to be thin, so you know you better have a good underlying goal.”
Roy said the Senate is “hiding behind an artificial 60 vote threshold” when it instead could employ tactics to force a majority vote to pass the SAVE Act, such as using the talking filibuster rule or abolishing the filibuster altogether.
“What are you going to deliver for us?” Roy asked the Senate. “We haven’t passed codification of border security, even though we have migrants sitting in Mexico right now, literally telling people they’re just waiting till Trump’s gone to just come back, and we haven’t codified anything.”
Cleta Mitchell, founder of the Election Integrity Network and advocate for the SAVE America Act, said the president understands that the act “is not just another bill.”
“I’ve worked with Republicans on these types of issues for many, many years, and I can just tell you that there is a gene missing in Republicans when it comes to these kinds of process issues,” she said. “The Democrats have the gene, the Republicans don’t. So the president comes in, and he gets it, and he has the gene.”
“In a way, the president looks at California, and he understands that their elections are a mess,” she added, “and he understands that what happened in 2020 was a mess, and he knows that that isn’t the way our elections are supposed to work, and he realizes the damage that has been done to our elections.”
