President Donald Trump addressed concerns that his plan to use the Senate’s reconciliation procedure to pass the SAVE America Act will fail.
“The parliamentarian is going to have to make a decision on that,” he said on Sunday in response to a question from The Daily Signal.
Reconciliation allows for the Senate’s expedited approval of budget legislation. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told The Daily Signal last week that the White House wants to use reconciliation to pass the voter ID bill, requiring only 51 votes for its passage instead of the normal 60 votes.
However, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who sponsored the SAVE America Act in the Senate, said that process is “essentially impossible” because the bill doesn’t concern the budget, making it likely that the Senate parliamentarian will strike it down.
When asked about concerns over using reconciliation to pass the bill, Trump said the Senate should end the filibuster, where 60 votes are required to end debate and move a bill to the floor for final passage.
“I say, end the filibuster,” he said. “Terminate the filibuster. Just vote, and you’ll get everything you want.”
Trump said this strategy will get him the “five things” he is looking for: voter ID mandates; a proof of citizenship requirement for voter registration; ending mail-in ballots; barring men from women’s sports; and stopping transgender surgeries for children.
“They should terminate the filibuster, and they should vote… They’re playing too soft. The Republicans are wonderful people, but we’re dealing with very sick individuals — the Democrats are sick,” Trump said. “We have to protect our country.”
“We don’t want transgender mutilation of our children,” Trump said, “and we’re not going to have it. So we want to go into those things at five points, and with the filibuster termination, you can vote them all in.”
Sen. Lee responded to Trump’s statements on reconciliation, saying, “We already know how the parliamentarian is going to rule on that.”
“She will rule that SAVE America cannot be done through reconciliation,” Lee said. “So unless Senate Republicans are prepared to overrule her—which we have the power to do, even though we far too rarely do so—then that’s the end of the matter.”
