President Trump will walk into a Republican lunch Wednesday that's shaping up as a confrontation over voting legislation that has divided the party for months. Sens. Mike Lee and Rick Scott have spent the better part of a year pushing Senate leadership to pass the SAVE America Act, and now they're getting Trump in the room to hear their pitch.
Scott, who heads the conservative Senate GOP Steering Committee, extended the luncheon invitation to Trump on his own initiative. When asked if he checked with Majority Leader John Thune first, the senator simply told him after the fact. Thune responded with a laugh, suggesting he hadn't been consulted beforehand.
The stakes are real for Trump, who sees passage of the bill as crucial ammunition for Republicans heading into the midterms. But Thune remains unmoved by that calculation.
"There are not the votes to nuke the filibuster, and there aren't going to be 10 Democrat votes to all of a sudden support the SAVE America Act," Thune said Tuesday.
The SAVE Act would require voter ID and proof of citizenship while tightening rules on mail-in voting. Earlier this month, when Lindsey Graham tried attaching it to a budget bill, it garnered only 48 votes. A narrower amendment requiring photo ID at the polls performed better, reaching 53 votes. But four Senate Republicans opposed it, including Thune's own ally Thom Tillis, former leader Mitch McConnell, and moderates Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.
Previous attempts in April and June to require ID for voter registration or proof of citizenship failed to secure even 50 votes.
The arithmetic is the core problem, yet Lee and Scott remain publicly defiant. In a response to Thune's social media post Monday, Lee demanded immediate action. "Let's pass the SAVE America Act now," he wrote. "As I've been asking you to do for months, please bring it up now and announce that we will debate it until it passes."
Thune fired back, noting that some legislative goals remain elusive for a reason. "Sometimes when something hasn't been done in 100 years there's a reason for that," he said Tuesday.
Patience is fraying among mainstream Senate Republicans. Tillis accused Lee of "naivete" and chasing social media engagement rather than pursuing realistic legislative goals. Cornyn said Lee is "contributing to this fantasy that somehow it's going to happen." Capito, when asked about the pair's efforts, said plainly: "The will is not there, and the votes aren't there. I'm into reality."
Scott sent a letter to senators Monday outlining his legislative priorities, which included passing the SAVE Act or pushing through portions of it. The two conservatives are calling for aggressive procedural tactics to force the debate to completion.
The Wednesday lunch will test whether Trump's presence shifts any dynamics or simply reinforces the mathematical impossibility that Thune and other centrist Republicans see.
Author James Rodriguez: "Lee and Scott are pushing an uphill battle that even Trump's backing may not overcome, but they're betting the president can change the math in ways Thune says simply doesn't exist."
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