Senate Republicans may have left Washington on a high note early Saturday morning, but they left one major item on the table: passing the SAVE America Act. It’s the bill that has dominated President Donald Trump’s attention span and garnered heavy criticism against Republicans in the upper chamber for not being able to pass it.
Delaying the SAVE America Act
Despite guarantees from some in the party that they would object to leaving until September in order to pass the voter integrity bill, lawmakers’ suitcases were packed and ready for the airport. The push was paused after Sen. Ron Johnson, Sen. Mike Lee, and Sen. Rick Scott huddled in the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune after speaking with Trump.
Johnson said Trump agreed that the best path forward was to “just work diligently through August into September to do an actually better budget reconciliation bill.” Republicans want to crank up the defense spending in their budget framework — Johnson said that War Secretary Pete Hegseth made a “very convincing case” to beef up the funding by $350 billion as the war in Iran continues and munitions dwindle.
Next Steps
The Senate returns the third week of September and will be tasked with moving two massive bills dealing with cryptocurrency regulations and money in college sports, both of which didn’t make the cut during the upper chamber’s last week in town. Then they’ll leave once again for nearly the entire month of October in preparation for midterm elections in early November.
“We’re not dropping SAVE,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said. “It’s a matter of time.” Time between now and the end of this session of Congress will be an increasingly short commodity to come by.
Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
