'I'm trying to be nice': Trump piles pressure on Thune over SAVE America Act



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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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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'This is a must-win': These 4 Republicans voted against banning trans surgeries on children



The House GOP passed a bill outright banning transgender surgeries for minors, yet some Republicans still objected.

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's bill Protect Children's Innocence Act passed in a 216-211 late-night vote on Wednesday. This legislation would make it a felony to perform sex changes or provide puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children.

'I wish that Republicans were as hell-bent on protecting children as Democrats are when it comes to mutilating them.'

Although the bill was passed largely along party lines, both Democrats and Republicans had some defectors.

On the Republican side, Reps. Mike Lawler of New York, Mike Kennedy of Utah, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Gabe Evans of Colorado voted against criminalizing transgender surgeries for children. Only three Democrats voted in favor of Greene's bill: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas.

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Greene's legislation is one of two GOP-led bills on the docket targeting transgender interventions for minors. Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, outlined the key differences between Greene's Protect Children's Innocence Act and Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw's bill the Do No Harm in Medicaid Act.

"It's necessary because it bans the procedure outright," Schilling said of Greene's bill. "We need this nationwide, because children in California should be protected from these procedures just as much as the kids in Texas or Oklahoma or Alabama or Mississippi or Florida."

"If we can't get the full ban done, we should at least make sure the taxpayers aren't paying for it, right?" Schilling said of Crenshaw's bill. "If you want a sex-change procedure, you should have to pay for it yourself. These are so expensive. They're so harmful to the individual. Why are you making us participate in this?"

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Both bills are useful because they force lawmakers to go on the record, articulating their degree of support for transgender ideology. Greene's bill saw near unanimous support from Republicans as well as near unanimous condemnation from Democrats. Crenshaw's bill puts forward a softer legislative approach, leaving room for moderates on either side to clarify their views on transgender interventions for children.

"I wish that Republicans were as hell-bent on protecting children as Democrats are when it comes to mutilating them," Schilling told Blaze News. "There's a difference between the two parties and how fired up they are when it comes to their principles. I think not giving kids sex changes is so commonsense. But these guys will figure out a way to make it controversial and debatable."

"If Republicans can't deliver on these things, or at least show that they're trying to deliver, voters are going to give up on us morally, financially, and politically," Schilling added. "This is a must-win for Republicans."

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Sterilizing children STOPS here: Trump’s executive order against transition surgeries for minors



After President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election and his long-awaited inauguration this month, America seems to be set firmly on a path of pure unadulterated winning.

And one of those major wins comes after Trump signed an executive order to end transition surgeries for minors in America — and Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” couldn’t be more hopeful.

“It was my great honor to sign an executive order banning the chemical castration and medical mutilation of innocent children in the United States of America. Our nation will no longer fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support so-called gender affirming care, which has already ruined far too many precious lives,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.


“My order directs agencies to use every available means to cut off federal financial participation in institutions which seek to provide these barbaric medical procedures that should have never been allowed to take place,” he added.

“There is light again in this country,” Gonzales comments, thrilled. “There’s no middle ground. We can’t sterilize an entire generation. We can’t chop healthy body parts off of children. We can’t do that. And so the idea, obviously, is that the federal government was participating in this in such a way and instructing insurance companies and all of this to cover it.”

And she thinks it’s time for Congress to step up and help Trump permanently put this order into law.

“I would like to see Congress go ahead and act on this, because we need them to actually do the jobs that they signed up to do, rather than allow Donald Trump to just rule by executive order. Back him up a little bit here,” she says.

“Let’s go ahead and make it resoundingly clear that this country will no longer tolerate ruining and sterilizing an entire generation,” she continues, adding, “I would love to see RFK Jr. get confirmed and then start putting these demons in their place. Cut them off from the medical system, disbar them, whatever the hell you have to do.”

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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson compares transgender surgeries on children to interracial marriage at Supreme Court arguments



U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued Wednesday that bans on transgender surgeries for children are similar to bans on interracial marriage.

Jackson argued that one of the state bans on child transgender surgeries appeared to depend on an argument of classification that seemed similar to that used by states in the past on interracial marriage. The court is hearing arguments about transgender surgeries after the Biden Department of Justice sued Tennessee for banning the practice in March 2023.

'There is absolutely a parallel between any law that says you can't act inconsistent with a protected characteristic.'

"The question was whether it was discriminatory because it applied to both races and it wasn't necessarily invidious or whatever, but as I read the statute here, asking the case here, the court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of 16 states which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications," said Jackson.

"And when you look at the structure of that law, it looks in terms of you can't do something that is inconsistent with your own characteristics. It's sort of the same thing," she added. "So it's interesting to me that we now have this different argument, and I wonder whether Virginia could have gotten away with what they did here by just making a classification argument the way that Tennessee is in this case."

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar agreed with the characterization made by Jackson.

"Yes, I think that's exactly right that there is absolutely a parallel between any law that says you can't act inconsistent with a protected characteristic," she responded.

Audio of the comments was circulated on social media by supporters of the Tennessee ban.

Democrats have been struggling to explain their electoral losses across the board, and some have landed on the unpopular issue of transgender child surgeries as part of their problem. Others have scolded Democrats on the issue and demanded that the party plow full steam ahead into more extreme transgender policies, despite polling showing most Americans oppose those policies.

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