Trump BLASTS John Thune over filibuster: ‘Stupidity always brings losing and death’



President Donald Trump is escalating his pressure campaign against Senate Majority Leader John Thune, urging Republicans to scrap the Senate filibuster and remain in session until the SAVE America Act reaches his desk.

And in a fiery Truth Social post, Trump warned that Thune’s failure to take action could have devastating consequences.

“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the Budget, and the ever looming Debt Ceiling disaster, 1929!” Trump wrote.

“The Dumocrats will do it on day one, and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership. Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!” he added.


“Very true,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments on “Pat Gray Unleashed,” before playing a clip of the president addressing questions about his relationship with Thune.

“He’s got to get his job done. It’s fine. I have a good relationship with John Thune. He’s just got to get his job done,” Trump told a reporter.

“You got to get the SAVE America Act passed. Or better than that would be the filibuster. If you terminate the filibuster, everything happens. If you don’t terminate the filibuster, only bad things will happen,” he added.

“For his part,” Gray says, “John Thune was like, ‘My hands are tied. Show me how I can do this. There’s no path. There’s no path.’”

“It’s maddening,” co-host Jeff Fisher comments.

“He just doesn’t seem to understand and grasp what needs to happen,” he adds.

“He’s not willing to do it,” Gray agrees. “He’s just not.”

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White House Demands Senate Pass The SAVE Act NOW!
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White House Demands Senate Pass The SAVE Act NOW!

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Trouble likely awaits a budget resolution tied to the SAVE America Act as it heads to the stubborn upper chamber of Congress.

On Wednesday, the House passed a $95 billion budget resolution, 216-214, carrying with it important incentives for states to pass the SAVE America Act, alongside funding for Iran-related operations and farm aid.

'It's like the Senate is a place that you send things when you want them to die.'

The $95 billion package includes $73 billion for defense and intelligence funding, $12 billion for agricultural aid, and $10 billion in election-related funding for states, a key aspect of the SAVE America Act.

The bill itself is five primary issues: voter ID, proof of citizenship to register, an end to universal mail-in ballots, and bans on transgender athletes in women's sports and transgender surgery for minors.

The SAVE America Act is now sitting with a Republican-controlled Senate that is in apparently no rush to deal with it.

Trump ramped up his pressure campaign against Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) at a Georgia rally Wednesday, urging supporters to flood Thune's office with calls demanding action on passing the budget bill and, eventually, the SAVE America Act.

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Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

He credited Johnson and the House for doing their part, but blamed the Senate for the holdup: "It's like the Senate is a place that you send things when you want them to die."

“We’re not going to take this any longer. … I’m trying to be nice; I’m trying to be really nice,” Trump added.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) also suggested on X that Thune should "step aside" if he won't act.

Politico's reporting from inside the GOP conference shows the resistance runs well past the three sitting holdouts — Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

A source familiar with the matter told Blaze News that Thune is prioritizing the continuing resolution to avoid another shutdown and that the budget resolution is in reserve.

Asked Wednesday how close he was to 50 votes, Thune said only, "Good question."

By Thursday, he was blunter: "I can't count to 50 right now on a budget resolution."

Per Politico, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters Wednesday he doesn't expect Thune to take it up at all; Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) isn't sure the votes exist in the first place; and newly named Budget Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said there has been no formal conversation yet.

Thune himself has asked colleagues, "Is the juice worth the squeeze?"

Reconciliation needs only a simple majority, as opposed to the 60-vote threshold for passing bills into law. Even so, the bill has failed twice — once in April and again in June — with Collins, Murkowski, Tillis, and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voting no alongside every Democrat both times.

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Earlier this month, Speaker Johnson called the package "our best shot" at 50 votes plus Vice President JD Vance as the tiebreaker. For now, McConnell's indefinite absence drops the vote count to 99, meaning Republicans need a plain majority. One holdout flipping to yes still passes it outright, while an abstention reopens a possible 49-49 tie, putting Vance's tiebreaker back in play.

Only if all three hold firm does the package fail.

Asked directly at Tuesday's weekly Senate GOP leadership press conference whether the House's reconciliation push is more than an academic exercise, Thune demurred: "We'll see ... what they get done this week and what it all consists of."

He confirmed the Senate would "hold" any budget resolution the House sends over — but specifically as a fallback to fund the government, not to advance the SAVE America Act.

"I hope that's not necessary," he said, noting he's already having "productive conversations" with Democrats on a separate funding deal to carry the government past the November election.

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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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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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