Trump Reaffirms Support for SAVE Act, Heaping More Pressure on GOP

President Donald Trump said on March 9 that he wants to see the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act passed, keeping the pressure on Senate Republicans to pass the measure that remains stalled in the upper chamber.

Trump wrote that the measure should require all voters to show identification, require people to show proof of U.S. citizenship to vote, and ban mail-in ballots except for travel, military service, disability, or illness.

Additionally, he wrote in all caps that the measure must include provisions against both “men in women’s sports” and “transgender mutilation surgery for children.”

The statement on social media comes a day after the president warned that he would not sign any bills into law until the SAVE America Act was approved by the Senate and doubled down on his administration’s push to add voter requirements ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The president called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to use the talking filibuster rule to pass the SAVE America Act.

“It must be done immediately,” Trump wrote. “It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE.”

The House passed the bill in February and sent it to the Senate. In his State of the Union speech last month, the president suggested that Congress pass the act and argued that it is designed to safeguard U.S. elections.

The SAVE America Act would require all applicants using the federal voter registration form to provide documentary proof of citizenship in person at their local election office. Among the acceptable documents are a valid U.S. passport and a government-issued photo ID card presented alongside a certified birth certificate.

Democrats oppose the bill because “they want to cheat,” Trump said in his speech on Feb. 24.

“We have to stop it, John,” the president said, referring to Thune.

The bill has been stalled since reaching the Senate in February. Thune has said he supports the legislation and that his Republican conference is still discussing how to pass it.

However, Senate Republicans “aren’t unified on an approach,” Thune said after Trump’s State of the Union speech.

Last week, during an interview with NBC News, the president said he was “not happy” that the bill is “not moving” in the Senate, saying that he has expressed that view with everyone in the GOP.

“I would close government over it,” Trump said. “To me, that’s a core belief.”

The bill has faced pushback from Senate Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on March 8 indicated that Senate Democrats would not help pass the measure, saying that the SAVE America Act could “disenfranchise tens of millions of people.”

Democrats and voting rights groups such as the Brennan Center said the legislation could lead to widespread voter disenfranchisement if it were to become law, saying that “millions” of American citizens do not have readily available proof of citizenship or a U.S. passport.

A 2024 report from the center states that “research indicates that more than 9 percent of American citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, don’t have proof of citizenship readily available” and that about 3.8 million “don’t have these documents at all” for various reasons.

Thune’s office did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.