House GOP weds SAVE Act to key funding bill, unshouldering burden of success onto Thune and company



House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced late last month that he would bundle the SAVE America Act with the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act so that Senate Republicans are presented with the choice of both bolstering the integrity of American elections and funding national defense — or neither.

"We're going to pass a MIRV, or what's better known as a 'merge onto the rule,'" said Johnson, adopting the military acronym for multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle, a ballistic missile that carries multiple warheads. "So what that means is, when Republicans vote for the rule, they'll be voting not just for the NDAA and everything else in there, but they'll be voting to merge onto that the SAVE America Act we passed back in February."

'WHATEVER IT TAKES.'

Johnson noted further that "if any Republicans choose to vote against the rule, they will be voting against that outcome. So we think this is another good way to show the resolve of the House."

House Republicans' resolve was tested and proven on Tuesday in a successful 215-211 vote in favor of a special rules resolution that included language that would attach the SAVE America Act (S.1383) to the end of the NDAA once it passes the House.

Florida Rep. Randy Fine was the lone Republican who voted against the rule.

Ahead of the vote, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) — who previously opposed the rule — noted on X, "We will try the MIRV process on the condition that Speaker Johnson attaches the SAVE America Act to all the appropriation bills and all must-pass bills here in the House and ensures it is sent to the Senate as one bill. If John Thune strips it out in the Senate that will be on him and the entire country should be watching what he does."

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Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

Luna said after the vote, "The House is doing its job, now it's the Senate's turn. All eyes on John Thune. If SAVE America fails all of America will know who to blame."

While Luna preemptively assigned the burden of the act's success to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Democrats appear dead-set on blocking the linked NDAA, claiming their opposition has something to do with the protracted Iran conflict.

Although he too initially opposed the rule, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) suggested after its passage on Tuesday that it was worthwhile.

"That’s what we need," said Burchett, reported The Hill. "We need to just keep pounding the Senate and forcing them to take the right stand."

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) was among those enthusiastic over this turn of events, stating, "THANK YOU to House Republicans for delivering on their promises to the American people and setting a good example for us in the Senate."

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) emphasized after the vote that with the midterm elections just a few months away, "we must try EVERYTHING we can to get the SAVE America Act passed. WHATEVER IT TAKES."

In addition to tethering the SAVE America Act to the 2027 NDAA, the rule advances other legislation, including a measure that would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide and the State Department appropriations bill.

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The SAVE America Act is being buried, and Rep. Luna is blowing the whistle



Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) says Republicans are squandering a golden opportunity to pass the SAVE Act and secure America's elections — even though they have enough power to do it.

“We control the House, the Senate, and the White House,” Luna says to Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck. “And yet you have a group of four Republicans in the Senate, and really John Thune, who has every ability to enforce the talking filibuster and just doesn’t want to do it.”

“If you’re going to continue the cycle of insanity, then you can’t complain about it,” she continues. “But that’s why I’m taking such a hard-line position on what I’m doing right now — with, by the way, other members of Congress.”

“This is not just my fight. I mean, you have members of the Freedom Caucus, Representative Tim Burchett, Max Miller, all these members are saying, ‘Hey, hold up. We have the ability to, in the text of the National Defense Authorization Act, put the Save America Act,’” she says. “And yet, why are we not doing it?”


Luna, who is a veteran, points out that voter ID and proof of citizenship have always been important to national defense and security — but the Democrats are pretending it’s not.

“It is Chuck Schumer saying he wants to give citizenship to millions of illegal people here. It is the fact that it doesn’t matter if it’s one or one hundred or a thousand cases of voter fraud,” she says. “Why would you not want to secure that?”

While the left will claim the “Trump machine” will steal the next election, Luna points out that voter ID would fix that too.

“Even aside from that, even aside from party politics, black, white, Hispanic, Democrat, Republican, independent, men, women, we all want voter ID,” she continues. “Period.”

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‘National emergency’: Trump cancels bill signing until SAVE America Act passes



President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would delay the signing ceremony for a major bill until lawmakers pass the SAVE America Act.

Just over an hour before he was scheduled to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would not sign the legislation on Wednesday. The bill aims to increase the nation’s housing supply and boost affordability by expanding available financing and providing grants for community developments.

'It has been stuck in the Senate, and here’s why: because no Democrat in the House or Senate will vote for the SAVE America Act.'

The housing act passed the Senate by an 85-5 vote on Monday and the House in a 358-32 vote on Tuesday. The bill had complete Democratic support from those who voted, and the only dissenting votes were from Republicans.

“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT,” Trump wrote.

The SAVE America Act aims to end noncitizen voting by requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in a federal election. The form of identification must comply with the REAL ID Act of 2005, such as a U.S. passport, military ID, birth certificate, or other government-issued photo ID.

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Brendan SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) stated Wednesday that the top priority is passing the SAVE America Act, which he plans to push through a third budget reconciliation bill.

“It has been stuck in the Senate, and here’s why: because no Democrat in the House or Senate will vote for the SAVE America Act,” Johnson stated during a press briefing.

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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Johnson stated that “the only path” to get the act passed is to “put it on a reconciliation bill."

“We believe that if you create a grant program that ties it to reconciling the budget, and you allow blue states, if they come to their senses and they want to avail themselves of election integrity proposals and ideas and policies, they can draw down from a federal fund and use those funds. We’re willing to invest heavily in that, and House Republicans will put together a reconciliation bill, reconciliation 3.0, that will have that,” Johnson said. “I talked the president through that in detail this morning, as I have in the past, and he said, ‘Can we do it?’ I said, ‘We can, if the Republicans will stand together.’ We’re on the line right now to defend it.”

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The SAVE Act NEEDS to pass ... and it’s THIS simple



The SAVE America Act is a common-sense bill that would ensure American citizens would decide American elections by requiring voter ID and getting rid of mail-in ballots — which BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler could not be more on board with.

“It’s basically just elementary voter ID. This should have been passed weeks ago. Why hasn’t it been?” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler asks, before introducing the vice president of programs at the Conservative Policy Institute, Rachel Bovard.

“She knows what’s going on and who is to blame and what needs to happen to get the SAVE Act passed,” Wheeler says.

“It has passed out of the House — twice, actually. So what we’re dealing with: You have the SAVE Act, and then you have the SAVE America Act. And that is where we are now focusing, is the SAVE America Act,” Bovard explains.


“We had to do a second vehicle, because the SAVE Act passed out of the House in April. It went over to the Senate, where it was then referred to the Senate Rules Committee. And Mitch McConnell is the chair of the Senate Rules Committee and doesn’t like this bill,” she says.

“I don’t know why. Inexplicably. He’s never spoken on it. He doesn’t like it,” she adds.

That’s when House and Senate conservatives, working together on the issue, tweaked the bill to reintroduce it as the SAVE America Act.

“They sent it over to the Senate, and they did something very strategic this time around. They packaged it in such a way, in what we call a message. So they sent it over to the Senate as a message. Meaning, normally, to get on a bill in the Senate, you have to overcome a filibuster. When you have a message, it’s privileged. You don’t. So you can get onto the bill, bypassing the filibuster altogether,” Bovard tells Wheeler.

“And the second thing that was so brilliant about what they did was when it comes over as a message, it doesn’t get referred to committee. It sits at the desk, where it is just now waiting for Majority Leader John Thune to call it up. Now, will it be subject to a filibuster then? I assume it will,” she says, pointing out that there are two ways to break a filibuster.

“The one everyone’s very familiar with is invoking cloture, which is 60 votes. But the other way is through physical exhaustion, which is the old-fashioned way, which is making senators stand and speak until they physically cannot do so any longer and then putting the question,” she continues.

“So instead of having to break through 60 votes, you break through physical exhaustion, and then in both cases, once you’ve broken the filibuster, the bill passes a simple majority," she says. “So that is where things stand right now.”

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