Donald Trump had a late-night outburst over people using a shorthand to refer to a bill he says is so important “it supersedes everything else.”
“It’s not the Save Act, it’s The Save America Act! A MUCH better, and more important, name!!!” the president posted on Truth Social just before 10 p.m. Sunday.
Short for “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility,” the Save Act proposes tightened rules for registering and voting in federal elections, mainly by requiring proof of citizenship and stronger voter ID rules.
Trump and his allies have long pushed debunked conspiracy theories about foreign and Democratic interference in U.S. elections, famously blaming Trump’s thumping loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race on a nefarious election-rigging plot.
Critics have slammed the Save Act, warning the problem it claims to target of non-citizens voting is in fact extremely rare, and that the bill instead threatens to disenfranchise potentially millions of otherwise eligible voters who may not readily have the necessary documents.
The bill has already been approved by the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.
Facing a potential bloodbath at November’s midterm polls, Trump has increasingly insisted on the urgency of the Save Act, even going so far in an earlier Sunday Truth Social post to warn he will refuse to sign any other measures into law until the bill is approved.
“It must be done immediately. It supersedes everything else,” he wrote. “MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION.”
The president also told NBC News in an interview last week he would, if it came to it, be willing to shut the government down in order to see the measures implemented.
“I would close government over it,” Trump said. “To me, that’s a core belief,” he added.
Any bill that goes to his desk for signature automatically passes into law if 10 days go by without the president signing it.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
