Trump handcuffs congressional Republicans to the SAVE Act | Opinion
Make no mistake about November's midterm elections – President Donald Trump fears the potential for congressional oversight coming his way if the Democratic Party wins control of the House or the Senate.
Trump is so worried that he has shoved into jeopardy the pending renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Section 702, which he just days ago described as "very important" for America's security.
That FISA provision – which expired on June 12 – gave intelligence agencies authority to spy on the communications of foreigners, and sometimes captures interactions with U.S. citizens.
Trump insisted in a pair of social media posts on June 14 and June 15 that the FISA renewal must be linked legislatively to his top priority, passage of the so-called SAVE America Act, a clearly unconstitutional federalization of elections designed to make it harder for Americans to vote.
"I'm against FISA if it doesn't come with The Save America Act (Full version!) firmly attached to it," Trump posted on June 14. He doubled down a day later, making the same demand while also mixing in some anti-transgender bigotry.
Trump values restricting the rights of Americans to vote over the duty to keep Americans safe because he knows a Democratic takeover in the midterms of the House or Senate will make the last two years of his second term a bureaucratic blizzard of subpoenas, depositions and public hearings.
Trump's Republican allies in Congress have been protecting him from that, and voters look ready to make them pay for it in November. The president has a weird way of showing gratitude for that protection – by making life harder for his Republican allies in Congress.
Trump wants choose who votes
The SAVE America Act would violate the U.S. Constitution, which directs that states, not the federal government, run our elections. But Trump wants to choose who votes, instead of having voters choose who represents them in Congress.
Republicans in the Senate do not have the numbers to overcome their chamber's 60-vote filibuster threshold to pass the SAVE America Act. And the Senate's parliamentarian has ruled that the bill can't be included in budget legislation passed through a simple-majority process known as reconciliation.
Senate Republicans, who control their chamber with a slim majority, have so far resisted Trump's demands to kill the filibuster or fire the parliamentarian.
Trump's attempts to leverage the SAVE America Act have faltered for months. In March, he insisted in a social media post that the bill "GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE" and claimed that he would not sign any other legislation until then. That didn't stop Trump from signing pieces of legislation into law after making the threat.
Trump, in May, called for the SAVE America Act to be inserted into legislation that dealt with the FISA renewal or a bipartisan bill to provide housing. That also didn't happen.
And four Senate Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina ‒ on June 4 rejected an effort to stuff the SAVE America Act into legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies.
That failure prompted some public squabbling in the Republican caucus.
Trump keeps the problems coming for his own party
While Republicans struggle with Trump's agenda, he keeps lobbing new problems at them. FISA's Section 702 renewal vote was jammed up when Trump named a federal housing official, Bill Pulte, to be acting director of national intelligence.
Pulte, who lacks the intelligence experience necessary by law for that post, has been an eager accomplice in Trump's other obsession, the abuse of federal power as retribution against perceived political enemies.
Pulte is set to take over as DNI on June 19, but on June 11, Trump must have sensed that he had boxed in his Republican allies and named Jay Clayton, a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, to be the next DNI.
Clayton, who also lacks intelligence experience, has a nomination hearing scheduled for June 17 with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It's not clear if the Senate can approve Clayton's nomination in time to head off Pulte's short-term takeover as DNI. The Intelligence Committee's rules require unanimous consent of all members to suspend a "48-hour rule" to provide two days for the public posting of transcripts and answers to post-hearing questions.
The only thing that is clear here is that Trump is going to keep making life difficult for the Republicans in Congress trying to help him, while also trying to hang onto their slim majorities in the House and Senate. Trump in late May declared, "I don't care about the midterms," in what may have been his most audacious lie of the year.
He cares. But he also lacks the focus and discipline to be a stand-up political partner for the party he is putting at risk.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump handcuffs congressional Republicans to the SAVE Act | Opinion
Reporting by Chris Brennan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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This story was originally published June 24, 2026 at 12:30 PM.