As Republicans look to attach their election integrity bill to a must-pass government spending bill, former President Donald Trump and his allies are preparing to use Democratic opposition to lay the groundwork for claims of a stolen election before voters even cast their ballots in the November election.
House Republicans are poised to vote this week on a six-month continuing resolution that would extend current spending levels until late March, pushing off negotiations for the fiscal 2025 budget until lawmakers know who will be in the White House next year. But with that comes a catch: Republicans are pushing to include the SAVE Act, a GOP-led bill that would prohibit noncitizens from voting in federal elections — something Democrats adamantly oppose.
Now Republicans are likely to use that opposition to paint Democrats as weak on election integrity and putting the November contest at risk.
“We just now need all Republicans to get behind it and jam it down the throats of Democrats who are more interested in perpetuating their scheme of pulling in voters for Democrats than standing up for citizen-only voting,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), author of the SAVE Act, told conservative radio host Glenn Beck of the proposal.
Top congressional Democrats have already come out in opposition to attaching the SAVE Act to any government spending bill, accusing Republicans of pushing forward a “partisan and extreme continuing resolution” that is “unserious and unacceptable.”
“Congress must pass a short-term continuing resolution that will permit us to complete the appropriations process during this calendar year and is free of partisan policy changes inspired by Trump’s Project 2025,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter on Monday.
The White House also opposes the funding proposal and President Joe Biden has threatened to veto the legislation should it reach his desk.
Trump had a heavy hand in crafting the SAVE Act alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) earlier this year over concerns that “potentially hundreds of thousands of votes” will be cast in November by illegal immigrants, claiming they do not need to prove their citizenship under current law.
Trump has also accused Democrats of “importing voters” from foreign countries, a claim that has been amplified by allies such as Elon Musk.
“They are allowing these people to come in. … They are signing them up to vote,” Trump said at a campaign event in January. “That’s why you are having millions of people pour into our country, and it could very well affect the next election.”
Federal law already requires voter registration forms to compel voters to swear under penalty of perjury that they are citizens of the United States. Additionally, individuals must provide proof of a driver’s license or Social Security number for election officials to verify their identity in U.S. databases.
However, some Republicans have lamented the law does not go far enough to require additional scrutiny on whether individuals are eligible to vote.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), locked in a competitive bid to become the next Senate GOP leader, downplayed Trump’s stolen election comments as nothing more than concern about voter ID.
“We know from polling that voter ID is enormously popular on a bipartisan basis,” he said. “I honestly don’t see what the big deal is.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), a close ally of Trump, also downplayed his remarks on election integrity: “If people are interfering with elections, it’s illegal. There ought to be a bit of a clamp down on it. I think that would help restore some trust into our system.”
But Democrats oppose the proposal as a “scare tactic” that feeds into unfounded claims that millions of illegal immigrants are voting in federal elections.
As a result, Trump and his allies are planning to use that opposition in their favor, preparing arguments for widespread election fraud if Trump loses in November.
“In each state, we are deploying lawyers to help back the Constitution and the right to vote when you have the right to vote — not to flood illegal aliens into this country in an attempt to shake it down because you can’t win with the American vote. We know that’s what they’re doing,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba told Fox News on Sunday. “I think it’s disgusting. The Democrats can’t win lawfully, so they’re trying to make sure that they turn their cheek the other way instead of enforcing the laws.”
Trump has long amplified unsubstantiated claims of Democratic cheating in 2020, which he has said is responsible for his close loss to Biden. However, Trump has in recent weeks acknowledged he lost “by a whisker,” one of his most direct acceptances of defeat.
That concession prompted backlash from some of his furthest-to-the-right supporters who lamented their efforts to help overturn the election results over Trump’s claims they were fraudulent.
“So, why did we do Stop the Steal? Why did anyone go to Jan. 6? Why did anyone go to jail?” Nick Fuentes, a hard-right political commentator who participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, said on his podcast last week. “It would have been good to know that before 1,600 people got charged. It would’ve been good to know that before I had all my money frozen, put on a no-fly list, banned from everything, [and] lost all my bank and payment processing.”
Despite admitting defeat at times, Trump continues to claim Democrats cheat and steal votes, even going so far as to threaten the prosecution of election officials.
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote on Saturday on his Truth Social platform. “We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T!”
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The Harris campaign decried Trump’s sentiments, accusing the former president of “openly laying out how he will try to rule as a dictator on day one to go after his political enemies.”
“An extreme and unhinged Donald Trump is further ratcheting up his dangerous threats of revenge and retribution,” Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement. “Another thing is clear: For Donald Trump, it’s all about himself. The American people will reject Trump’s self-obsessed revenge tour this November and elect the only candidate with a positive vision for our country who is actually fighting not for herself but for all Americans regardless of political party — Vice President Kamala Harris.”
