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\n

Donald Trump is about to come face to face with one of his frequent punching bags: Senate Republicans.<\/p>\n

They might just be in a mood to punch back.<\/p>\n

The president was invited to GOP senators\u2019 Wednesday lunch to push for his No. 1 priority, the GOP election bill known as the SAVE America Act<\/a>. But several outgoing Republicans who have clashed with Trump said Monday they will be there to deliver a reality check: The bill isn\u2019t passing, and it\u2019s time to move on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m going to be there front and center,\u201d Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters. \u201cIt will be important if it actually is a constructive exchange of different opinions, and hopefully we can all get on the same page. Right now, we’re not in a great place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornyn, who recently lost his bid for a fifth term to a Trump-endorsed challenger, reiterated the votes just aren’t there to pass the elections bill: \u201cI\u2019ve been around here long enough and been through enough battles and counted enough votes to know that it doesn’t just magically occur, no matter how much you wish it would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) \u2014 who are also departing the Senate in part due to Trump \u2014 said Monday they, too, will be at the closed-door lunch and urged Trump to turn the page on the SAVE America Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a co-sponsor, but it doesn\u2019t have the votes, and so it\u2019s time to talk about something else,\u201d said Cassidy, who also lost to a Trump-backed primary opponent.<\/p>\n

Trump was invited to the Wednesday lunch by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who oversees the weekly gathering as GOP steering committee chair, at a tenuous moment. Senate Republicans have grown frustrated with Trump\u2019s fixation on the elections bill, are openly questioning<\/a> parts of his Iran deal and worry that his habit of blindsiding them with sudden policy U-turns<\/a> is making it harder to preserve their majority in November.<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s invitation comes as the elections bill has emerged as a perennial headache for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, whom Scott informed of the invite after it was extended. Thune and other members of the GOP conference insist it doesn\u2019t have the votes to pass and have begged Trump to focus on more attainable priorities.<\/p>\n

Same goes, they say, for other Trump demands \u2014 killing the 60-vote filibuster threshold<\/a> for legislation, for instance, and ending the \u201cblue slip\u201d practice<\/a> of giving home-state senators a say on some presidential nominees.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of those are going to happen here, and we need to be honest with the president,\u201d Tillis said. \u201cSo why don’t we spend more time being productive about how we communicate, when we communicate, and get some of these very pressing issues done?\u201d<\/p>\n

But Trump has shown he will not relent, especially on the SAVE America Act \u2014 a bill that would impose new proof-of-citizenship and identification requirements for U.S. voters in its base form, with the president demanding still other controversial provisions added on top of that.<\/p>\n

In a Truth Social post late last week, Trump name-checked Thune and urged the Senate to nix the filibuster and approve the bill: \u201cAnybody who doesn\u2019t want to Terminate the Filibuster is a FOOL, a very stupid one, at that!\u201d<\/p>\n

Several GOP senators, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have objected to the precedent the bill would set by nationalizing election procedures. Test votes on the bill have not garnered more than 48 supporters, though a narrower bill focused on voter ID won 50 votes. That’s still far short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a certain Democratic filibuster.<\/p>\n

Asked late last week about Trump\u2019s comments, Thune said a majority of Senate Republicans have long-held views against nixing the filibuster.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not a question of what I want to do or don’t want to do,\u201d he said. \u201cIt does always come back to the math. And \u2026 there just aren’t the votes to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thune said Monday that he \u201cwouldn\u2019t be surprised\u201d if the election bill comes up but predicted it would be a \u201cback and forth\u201d between Trump and GOP senators over multiple subjects, including the brewing Iran deal and the stalemate over a key surveillance law and future of the director of national intelligence post.<\/p>\n

He added that \u201chopefully\u201d the discussion would include \u201ccelebrating some of our successes, talking about the path forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GOP election bill has become a consistent friction point within the party and within the Senate GOP conference. Senate Republicans largely support the bill but believe the party needs to turn its focus to Democrats, rather than fighting each other, with just months to go until the midterms.<\/p>\n

Republican senators have kvetched for months<\/a> about how they believe Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is setting unrealistic expectations for the bill\u2019s passage. Lee posted on X over the weekend that he spoke with Trump and \u201che\u2019s as convinced as I am that we can get this done if the Senate\u2019s willing to do the hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornyn called out Lee Monday, saying that he \u201cis contributing to this fantasy that somehow it’s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee responded that the election bill isn\u2019t a fantasy but \u201ca plan to avoid a nightmare \u2014 one that\u2019s coming soon unless we act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans agreed to take up the voting bill earlier this year, in part after leaders privately reassured wary GOP senators that the debate wouldn\u2019t result in an attempt to skirt the 60-vote filibuster. But the weekslong debate failed to break the stalemate on the bill, and Senate Republicans ultimately placed it on the back burner as other legislative deadlines piled up.<\/p>\n

Conservatives, however, hadn\u2019t forgotten about the bill, and now they want the Senate to continue to vote on it.<\/p>\n

Scott \u2014 who came in third in the leadership contest Thune won after the 2024 election\u2014 sent a letter to his fellow Senate Republicans Monday, a copy of which was obtained by Blue Light News, saying that he wanted to have \u201crobust conversations\u201d this week about what the party should be focused on before the midterms. That, he said, should include voting on the SAVE America Act or narrower voter ID legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make a clear distinction as to who the good guys are and who the bad guys are,\u201d Scott wrote in the letter. \u201cWe need to show voters that we are listening to them and will fight for their priorities whether any Democrats vote with us or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump is about to come face to face with one of his frequent punching bags: Senate Republicans. They might just be in a mood to punch back. The president was invited to GOP senators\u2019 Wednesday lunch to push for his No. 1 priority, the GOP election bill known as the SAVE America Act. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}