Good morning. It was great to meet all of you who came out to our event in New York last night with Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket.

Trump Tries to Raise the Stakes on SAVE Again

President Donald Trump made a show yesterday afternoon of preparing to throw Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to the wolves out of frustration that the SAVE Act is not yet on track to pass in any form. The latest push is to jam parts of the bill through using budget reconciliation, which requires 51 instead of 60 votes, though Trump also continues to agitate for Thune to nuke the filibuster and pass the full voter suppression package.

Asked whether Thune is the right person to lead the Senate, Trump said, “We will find out, and I will let you know.”

“All right. Well, that’s nice of him, I guess,” Thune told Punchbowl. “I don’t know — what do you say on that? That’s a decision that’s made by my colleagues.”

Throughout Trump’s SAVE Act pressure campaign on his Senate allies, he has repeatedly made demands that misunderstand the reality of how the Senate functions, and how bills become law. He has seemed amenable to passing what everyone has taken to calling the “SAVE Act” through budget reconciliation, even though a SAVE Act done through reconciliation, while bad, would likely be without the nationwide voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates that are core to what the SAVE Act is. It is unclear whether Trump realizes this. He has refused to sign a popular housing bill, though without his signature it simply became law after 10 days; in doing so, the president achieved nothing on the SAVE Act while robbing himself of an opportunity to claim a victory on “affordability.” His demands for the SAVE Act to be attached to various funding bills dramatically complicated his allies’ attempts to fund ICE over Democratic opposition in the spring, and look sure to complicate government funding fights this fall.

When we see legislators take bills hostage, an increasingly common phenomenon since the Obama era that has often led to government shutdowns, the more effective efforts involve lawmakers carefully finding legislation where they have maximal leverage. Trump hasn’t done this — perhaps he doesn’t have the attention to detail to do so — and is as a result unable to truly achieve anything beyond making life considerably more frustrating for his fellow elected Republicans.

That’s the case this week, too. Thune is, of course, right that, in the end, Trump does not select the majority leader, though he may wish he did. Other senators do. Trump can’t oust Thune. But he can elevate him as a target at which his activist base should direct their hate.

Trump’s Blanche Nomination Gets Stuck

John Cornyn (R-TX) has caused a vote to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, scheduled for today, to be postponed.

• Yesterday, Cornyn said he was canceling a meeting with Blanche, explaining that he wanted to see a written modification to the settlement between Trump and the IRS that would have created the “anti-weaponization” slush fund.
• The DOJ told us it sent a “written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff.” Cornyn told reporters, “I haven’t seen a single piece of writing that is responsive to what I’ve requested.”
• The vote could move forward whenever Cornyn gives the green light, though at this point that might not happen with enough time to confirm him before the Senate takes a month-long recess, beginning at the end of next week.
• The episode is more significant as a (perhaps short-lived) display of GOP Senate resistance to Trump than as an actual check on the DOJ: Even if Blanche isn’t confirmed, he can remain in the role as acting attorney general. And whatever the fate of the slush fund, settlements for right-wing activists continue, with the DOJ agreeing this week to pay more than a million dollars to an anti-abortion activist who was convicted in 2024 of conspiring to prevent access to a clinic, the New York Times reports.

Tabs

• Republicans may not end up following Trump’s endorsement and picking Darline Graham Nordone to fill her brother’s seat, the Washington Post writes. The Downballot gives a rundown of the many, many other candidates in the race, including some figures we’ve covered quite a bit over the years.
• Kash Patel has lost a defamation suit against an internet poster who called him a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch” and a “chud,” the New Republic reports. U.S. District Court Judge for the district of Nevada Andrew P. Gordon found he did not have jurisdiction.

Man of the Hour

It’s Alex Jones, the onetime stalwart ally of President Trump who has now turned to demanding his impeachment over the Iran war to attract attention (which, admittedly, he is succeeding in doing). I used a gas station bathroom off I-95 the other day where someone had written “Alex Jones is right” on the soap dispenser — so make of that what you will.

Are We at War?

You bet.

How to Think About the SAVE Act

The SAVE America Act is playing a few roles in our politics right now.

On the one hand, it is a sweeping voter suppression bill, and one prong of Trump’s multifaceted assault on elections. Should it become law, it would add new hurdles for a wide range of Americans to participate in democracy, including voter ID for casting a ballot and proof of citizenship to register to vote. Republican supporters of the bill seem to have the impression that these restrictions would overwhelmingly hurt Democrats, and they are likely right: Recent polling by G. Elliott Morris at Strength In Numbers shows a greater number of Democrats — and Black Americans in particular — are likely to have trouble producing the documents needed to prove their citizenship. The law would hit Republicans, too — more than its supporters seem to realize. Among other things, women who change their names when they get married, a group that certainly includes many white, American-born, Republican voters, may have to provide additional documents to prove their citizenship under their new name.

So thats’s the reality of the SAVE Act, if it passes. Quite significant.

At the same time, the more expansive versions of the SAVE Act, including versions with national mandates around voter ID and proof of citizenship, have never had a clear path through the Senate — even as Trump sporadically attempts to up the pressure on his fellow Republicans to make it happen.

That, despite the seriousness of the legislation at hand, has led to an almost comic dynamic where everything the Senate, and much that the House, tries to accomplish is derailed by new Trump demands related to the SAVE Act. It has blown up primaries, too; Ken Paxton was able to prevent a Trump endorsement of Sen. John Cornyn (R), and ultimately win it for himself, by painting Cornyn as an insufficiently dedicated supporter of the legislation.

So we cover all this keeping two things in our mind at once: Should Republicans find a way to maneuver the SAVE Act through Congress — including by finally agreeing to nuke the filibuster for it, as Trump has demanded — it would create a sweeping distortion of the franchise. In the meantime, however, it has been a force for chaos, with Trump’s monomaniacal fixation on it leading to a far less effective Republican trifecta than we might have predicted in the early days of his second term.

Trump Gets His New, Permanent DNI

Jay Clayton was confirmed last night, Khaya Himmelman reports for TPM, replacing Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte.

• His confirmation hearing was defined by his alarming refusal to state plainly that Trump lost the 2020 election.
• While that has become a kind of standard operating procedure for Trump nominees before the Senate, it is particularly troubling given what the DNI job has become under Trump: Former DNI Tulsi Gabbard participated in the FBI raid on Fulton County, Georgia’s election hub. Current, acting DNI Bill Pulte headed up a largely ineffectual, new effort to again undermine the 2020 election, culminating in Trump’s big primetime speech earlier this month.
• Fittingly, Politico reports this morning that Pulte is agitating to stay in his acting role a little longer, pushing Trump to delay Clayton’s swearing-in.

Tabs

• Former FBI Director James Comey’s lawyers are seeking grand jury transcripts related to his seashell-photo indictment, Lawfare’s Anna Bower notes — raising fresh questions about the Trump DOJ’s dealings with grand juries as it seeks to punish its enemies.
• Trump said on Truth Social earlier this month that he would ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling on birthright citizenship. The deadline to do so has passed, NBC reports, and he has not.
• Large majorities of Americans support term limits for members of Congress, greater restrictions on money in politics, and scrapping the Electoral College, new polling by Pew Research Center finds.

Man of the Hour

Breaking News: Ross Douthat, The New York Times opinion columnist, is joining CBS News’s “60 Minutes” in one of the first major hires since Bari Weiss’s takeover.

— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2026-07-28T20:57:44.755968Z

It’s Ross Douthat, leaving his job as a top New York Times opinion writer to become the face of Bari Weiss’ 60 minutes. Good luck in the new job, Ross.

Are We at War?

Yes, with a wave of missiles fired by Iran overnight and Saudi Arabia joining the U.S. in striking Iranian militias.

‘Yeah, That’s Not Going to Happen’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and other Senate Republicans are resisting two aspects of Donald Trump’s latest demand that they pass the SAVE Act voter suppression bill: they don’t want to give up or delay their August recess to do so, and they don’t want to nuke the filibuster.

Scrapping the filibuster would allow the SAVE Act to pass with 51 instead of 60 votes. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Thune told ABC News yesterday.

“If the result is only achieved by nuking the legislative filibuster, we don’t have the votes to do that and so that’s not a — that’s just not a realistic option,” he reportedly added.

Trump in recent days has again demanded that both Houses of Congress turn their attention to the SAVE Act and the SAVE Act alone. He has threatened not to sign any legislation until the SAVE Act is passed. In a Monday Truth Social post, he insisted that the Senate delay its recess, and that it nuke the filibuster. “Stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!” he warned Thune. Other, vocal right-wing senators, including Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rick Scott (R-FL), are also calling for recess to be delayed.

Thune also dismissed the demands to nix recess, saying it was pointless for the Senate to stay in session without adequate votes for the SAVE Act.

All of this doesn’t entirely close the door on Trump’s push. The House and Senate still have some maneuvers they can try to advance the SAVE Act through budget reconciliation in the next few days, Punchbowl writes. And while the kind of SAVE Act that could be accomplished through reconciliation is not as dramatic as the sweeping election overhaul Trump has been pushing, it would still be ample reason for concern, as law professor and longtime congressional advisor Charles Teifer wrote for us last week.

Trump’s Attempt to Control Elections Through Executive Order Arrives at SCOTUS

A prong of Trump’s attack on the midterms has reached the Supreme Court, the first to do so. It has immediately become one of the most significant issues before the Court.

• Yesterday afternoon, the administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings that have blocked his executive order on elections from March.
• The March order was not his only attempt to seize control of election processes through executive action, but it was one of the most sweeping: it called for federal agencies to compile lists of eligible voters, and for them to exercise control over who can vote by mail.
• The Constitution gives the executive branch no role in setting election rules.
• There are other reasons the Court might be expected to turn the administration back. “If the Supreme Court followed its own guidance with any consistency, the Purcell principle — which prevents courts from changing voting procedures close to elections — would have some heft here, as the administration is demanding enormous and ill-defined changes when the midterms are already underway in many states,” Kate Riga wrote for TPM yesterday. “In recent years, though, the Roberts Court has tended to invoke or ignore Purcell in accordance with Republican preferences.”
• Not unrelatedly, a new Gallup poll finds the Supreme Court’s approval has hit a record low.

Tabs

• Trump recently urged RFK Jr. to do more to investigate supposed links between autism and vaccines, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• The political operative who recruited Graham Platner was himself credibly accused of sexual assault, Marisa Kabas reports for the Handbasket.
• The very extreme far-right candidate James Fishback beat an attempt to kick him off the ballot over questions of his residency, the Miami Herald reports.

Man of the Hour

It’s Sen. Mitch McConnell, not yet back in Congress and drawing demands from Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear (D) that he “directly, verbally” address his constituents to explain what’s going on.

Are We at War?

Sort of. Trump claims there is a “good chance” for a deal with Iran during this lull. Hear that, stock market?

‘We Have Seen Them Weaponize It’

It appears as though New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) will not comply with the Justice Department’s demands for the identities of the 6,600 noncitizens who were, through no fault of their own, placed on the voter rolls in 2023 and 2024.

President Donald Trump on Monday morning called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to cancel the upper chamber’s lengthy August recess until they pass the SAVE America Act — the voter suppression bill the president and his MAGA allies have been obsessively pushing Congress to pass for months.

“John Thune should not allow the United States  Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the Budget, and the ever looming Debt Ceiling disaster, 1929!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “The Dumocrats will do it on day one, and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership. Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”

Freshly sworn-in Sen. Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC) made her loyalty to President Trump and the rest of the MAGA movement known with a simple post on X this week when she announced the SAVE America Act would be “the first bill I am cosponsoring in the Senate.”

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

House Republicans will bring forward this week a surprising and dangerous form of the voting restriction proposals that President Trump has been relentlessly pressuring Congress to pass for months. That act may well discourage or exclude millions of voters via draconian requirements for presenting proof-of-citizenship when registering, showing rigorous voter ID at the polls, or even purging voter rolls. Previously, Trump has pushed these notorious proposals under the guise of “election integrity,” termed the “SAVE America Act,” repeatedly and loudly, and they have even passed the House. But the proposals have failed in the Senate, for lack of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, thanks to unyielding Democratic resistance and an assist  from some Senate Republicans. Trump has asked  Senate Republican leadership to abolish the filibuster in order to get the legislation through, and even to fire the universally-respected Senate Parliamentarian, and has been repeatedly refused. It seemed dead. His threat is back, disguised in a new form.