Senate GOP scrambling for a strategy to please Trump on SAVE America Act

Senate Senate GOP scrambling for a strategy to please Trump on SAVE America Act Comments: by Alexander Bolton - 06/26/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Alexander Bolton - 06/26/26 6:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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Senate Republicans are scrambling for a strategy to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election reform bill, along with $67 billion to $350 billion in defense spending after holding a contentious meeting with President Trump this week.

Trump told GOP senators in blunt terms during the meeting Wednesday in the Senate’s Mansfield Room to find a way to pass the SAVE America Act — his preferred version of the bill — and Trump brought along Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to press Republicans to also pass tens of billions of dollars in emergency funding for the Pentagon.

Trump’s full-court press on his top two agenda items gives Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) little time to get them past a Democratic filibuster in the four months left before Election Day.

Some GOP senators want Thune to attempt to jam the SAVE America Act — titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — into a budget reconciliation bill that could pass the Senate with a simple majority, even though an effort to do so earlier this month failed when Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled it did not comply with the Byrd Rule.

The Byrd Rule governs what legislation is eligible to be included in a budget reconciliation bill, and MacDonough’s ruling infuriated Trump, who has repeatedly called on Thune to fire her.

“Just because the parliamentarian says no, you have to keep taking her feedback and massaging, and there are some really big legal brains out there in the world that can help us,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who is urging Thune to use the reconciliation process to pass the SAVE America Act, even though the effort failed a few weeks ago.

Kennedy said trying to find a way to persuade the parliamentarian to allow the SAVE America Act, or at least key elements of it, to circumvent a filibuster “is our best route.”

The Louisiana senator said he’s also encouraged Thune to attach the SAVE America Act to an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorities that lapsed on June 12.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Wednesday that he plans to put the SAVE America Act in a third budget reconciliation package and send it to the Senate, making those comments after Trump refused to sign a widely popular bipartisan housing bill in protest of Congress’s failure to pass the election reform bill.

Johnson pitched a workaround to the parliamentarian’s ruling that would involve using grants to incentivize states to adopt provisions of the SAVE America Act. But conservatives in both chambers panned the proposal as a weak alternative to passing the bill in its entirety.

And GOP senators are already warning that Trump’s preferred version of the SAVE America Act might not be able to muster even a simple-majority vote in the upper chamber.

The base bill would require people to show documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to show photo identification when voting.

At the meeting with Republican senators Wednesday, Trump made it clear that he wants the version of the bill that would significantly curtail mail-in voting, bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports and prohibit transgender surgery for minors.

Four Republican senators voted against that proposal when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) offered it as an amendment to the budget reconciliation bill that passed earlier this month. The “no” votes were Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“There was no pitch, it was just, ‘You should do it,’” a source familiar with Trump’s blunt directions to Senate Republicans Wednesday on the need to pass the SAVE America Act.

But Trump’s pressure didn’t appear to sway the four GOP holdouts who recently voted against the bill.

“If the goal was to change hearts and minds, that did not work. If anything, it was probably a negative effect,” the source added. “[The president] talked about the filibuster, he talked about SAVE [America Act.] It was more of a, ‘You guy should do this. How is it possible that you guys are not doing it?’”

Trump made his demands at the meeting even though Senate Steering Committee Chair Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a staunch Trump ally, said at the beginning that there are not enough votes in the Senate to either abolish the filibuster or pass the SAVE America Act.

Thune has tried to tell Trump that for months, but his advice hasn’t changed Trump’s obsession with getting the bill passed.

The other major Trump priority that would need to be included in a budget reconciliation package is the White House’s request for $67 billion in emergency funding for the Pentagon, which the administration wants packaged along with approximately $20 billion to address the Ebola outbreak in Africa and to help U.S. farmers struggling with higher fuel and fertilizer costs and the impact of Trump’s global tariffs on U.S. exports.

Several GOP senators spoke to Hegseth at the Capitol Wednesday after the meeting with Trump to hash out strategy for passing the extra defense money.

“I talked to Secretary Hegseth about it. I’m working to get a supplemental,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has talked to Hegseth about the need to pass additional funding for the military.

Democrats, however, have made it clear they will not vote for emergency defense spending unless Trump gets authorization from Congress for the conflict with Iran — something that won’t happen after Democrats voted 11 different times for an Iran war powers resolution to end the conflict.

“Instead of doing anything to help families get by, he is asking taxpayers to pick up the tab and give him billions more to wage wars overseas,” Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in response to Trump’s request for emergency defense funding.

Trump demanded on June 10 that Republican lawmakers “immediately” advance $350 billion in defense funding through the budget reconciliation process.

GOP senators are divided, however, over defense funding included in a budget reconciliation package should it be offset with spending cuts that would give Democrats ammo on the campaign trail.

Vulnerable GOP incumbents want to avoid another tough round of votes on cuts to popular programs only a few months before Election Day.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate GOP leadership team, poured cold water on the idea of moving the SAVE America Act and defense funding through the budget reconciliation process before Election Day.

“I don’t see that particularly as viable. Appropriators hate it because it takes the ability to appropriate money out of their hands. I just think it causes too many challenges at this point,” he said of a third budget reconciliation package.