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President Trump on Monday slammed the Supreme Court ruling allowing states to count mail-in ballots received after Election Day, arguing it is now even more important for Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act.
The Supreme Court upheld a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots sent by Election Day to be counted, as long as they are received within five days, in a case that answers a key question for many states months before the midterms.
The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship to vote and that voters show a photo ID at polling places. The photo ID requirement would also change the way voters cast ballots by mail.
“There is no excuse for a politician, or otherwise, to be against the above three requirements,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post, in which he also claimed the SAVE America Act would ban mail-in voting. The current version of Congress’s bill, however, would not abolish the practice.
“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING! The House of Representatives has approved this vital Act, THREE TIMES. The United States Senate seems unable to do so,” he added.
Democrats are dead set against the bill, which they say would effectively disenfranchise millions of Americans. Republicans would have to eliminate the filibuster to overcome Democratic opposition in the Senate.
A handful of hard-line House Republicans are in favor of attaching the SAVE America Act to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), using the president’s plan to use an appropriations bill to push the voting bill over the finish line to become law.
The strategy, known as a “must-pass” leveraging tactic, forces lawmakers who strongly oppose the policy to choose between accepting it or shutting down federal operations.
Last week, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) stalled the House floor by using procedural measures to block a rule vote that would allow for legislative business to proceed. The president told her and other conservatives to stop “grandstanding” and “unify” to help advance the SAVE America Act under the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Meanwhile, Trump berated Senate Republicans last week during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill for not pursuing the “nuclear option” of eliminating the filibuster.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and others have repeatedly argued that the party just does not have the votes to advance the legislation.
“It’s quite simple. It’s a math problem. We simply don’t have the votes and the SAVE America Act will not be implemented in time for this election,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters.
Even if the bill were to pass, Tillis said there would not be enough time to implement the systemic election reforms that would be required of states.
“People will have to deal with registrations. Does any rational person who’s ever had any experience with implementing election law really think that it’s possible to have all that in place in time for this election and not be disruptive? And incidentally, it’s an unfunded mandate that has zero dollars for implementation,” he added.
District Court Judge Indira Talwani raised similar concerns with an election overhaul in her ruling last week that struck down Trump’s executive order seeking to overhaul elections by creating an internal list of eligible voters based on available data.
She noted that Massachusetts has already spent approximately $3 million on its mail ballots, while Maine and Rhode Island have already spent more than $50,000 on ballot envelopes that would be deemed ineligible by the president’s previous executive order.
While some raise logistical concerns, other Republicans argue there’s no proof of the type of cheating in elections that the bill seeks to address.
“I think it’s ironic that we control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the White House, and we’re yelling election fraud,” Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), who recently lost his Republican primary to a Trump-backed challenger, told reporters on Thursday.
“I mean, we won all the damn elections, and we’re in charge, and what are we doing with it? We’re bankrupting the country, we’re starting new wars, we’re violating the Constitution, we’re not cracking down on the fraud. The problem is not the elections,” he added.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Anna Paulina Luna Donald Trump John Thune mail in ballots Mike Johnson Thom Tillis Thomas Massie Trump administration Trump Truth SocialCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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