By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
With just a few months to go before voting starts in the midterm elections, the Republican-controlled Congress has become completely jammed by Donald Trump’s insistence that it find a way to pass the SAVE America Act. He’s petulantly refusing to sign a bipartisan housing bill that most Republicans had hoped to campaign on, arguing it’s “so unimportant” compared to the election bill. He rants about it endlessly on Truth Social. Mike Lee and various MAGA influencers stir up incessant social-media fury on the subject, echoing Trump’s demand that the Senate refuse to debate any other matter until Democratic resistance is beaten into submission and the bill passes.
A faction of Republicans has shut down all floor action indefinitely in the House until the Senate either musters the 60 votes to kill a Democratic filibuster against the bill or kills the filibuster itself; neither will ever happen, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The clock is ticking down on this congressional session. (Since this is an election year, the plan was to let members of Congress spend much of August and September back home campaigning.) And with huge priorities like a defense authorization bill, another Big Beautiful budget-reconciliation bill, and annual spending legislation on perpetual hold, the furor over the SAVE America Act is becoming a genuine national crisis.
