President Calls for Delayed August Recess, Renewed Push on Election Integrity Bill Amid Debate Over Noncitizen Voter Registration
President Donald Trump on July 27 urged the U.S. Senate to postpone its scheduled recess until lawmakers pass the SAVE America Act.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) “should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes.”
As an alternative, Trump called on senators to eliminate the legislative filibuster, arguing that Republicans could then swiftly approve key priorities, including “a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the Budget, and the ever looming Debt Ceiling disaster, 1929!”
Trump has been urging Republicans for months to advance the legislation. Although the bill was approved by the House of Representatives earlier this year, it failed to clear the Senate.
Thune has acknowledged that he does not have enough votes either to pass the bill or to abolish the legislative filibuster, which would allow the measure to be approved by a simple majority.
The proposed legislation would require proof of U.S. citizenship for new voter registrations and photo identification for voting. It would also impose restrictions on the use of mail-in ballots in certain situations nationwide.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) rejected the proposal in a July 27 post on X, stating, “It’s a new week in Washington, but one thing remains the same: The SAVE Act is dead on arrival in the United States Senate. It will not pass—not now, not ever.”
Democrats continue to oppose the bill, citing concerns that it could lead to voter suppression.
Several Senate conservatives, including Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah.), backed Trump’s call to act before the August recess.
“No results, NO RECESS,” Scott wrote in a post on X. “Pass SAVE America NOW!”
Lee, who introduced the legislation, also warned Thune in a social media post this past week that he would “object to any effort to put the Senate into recess in August—at least until such time as the Senate has passed the SAVE America Act.”
Concerns Over Noncitizen Voting
The renewed effort to delay the Senate’s recess follows several days of headlines regarding noncitizen voter registration.
On July 17, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced in a news release that New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, and Nevada had more than 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote. He added that New Jersey alone may have had “as many” as 35,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls.
On July 21, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, announced that more than 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote in the state because of an alleged software glitch and that “fewer than 400” had actually voted.
Earlier, on June 24, Trump postponed the signing of a federal housing bill, saying the SAVE America Act needed to be passed first.
“The 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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Congress had already approved the housing bill, and it later became law without Trump’s signature.
Trump argued that the housing legislation “pales in comparison to passing the SAVE America Act.”
