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This story was originally published by The 19th.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republicans have tried multiple avenues to pass their keystone elections bill. They reintroduced it in the House under a new name, mounted online pressure campaigns on congressional leadership and threatened to tank other legislation.

Though the SAVE America Act (formerly the SAVE Act) cleared the House in February, the Senate has avoided taking it up for a vote. Now, President Donald Trump has raised a series of demands that won’t make its passage any easier. Trump announced in a weekend social media post that he would “not sign other bills until this is passed, and not the watered down version — go for the gold,” a revision that could now put anti-trans measures in the bill.

As written, the SAVE America Act requires voters to provide documents proving their citizenship at the time of registration. That has raised alarms with voting rights groups, who say it would be burdensome to voters — especially married women and others who have changed their legal names because of marriage, assimilation or to better align with their gender identity.

Trump now says he wants to add other provisions, including voter ID requirements and a ban on mail-in ballots, with exceptions. He also wants to include unrelated provisions related to trans women’s participation in sports and gender-affirming care for trans youth, though he has not given additional details about how that would combine with the voting legislation.

The bill already faced a 60-vote threshold for passage in the Senate that it can’t meet without Democrats. Adding anti-trans measures and mail-in ballot restrictions further complicates any chance of passage.

The SAVE Act Is Not Just About “Married Women” — It’s About Trans People, Too

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said that for the version of the bill outlined by Trump to pass, the House — currently on recess — would need to act first.

“Those were all things that weren’t part of what they sent over here to us,” Thune told reporters Monday. “Whatever we take up here is an open question now, because the thing we have in front of us is the House message, so it would probably make sense for them to send over another version.”

The president repeated his wishlist while addressing House Republicans and donors in Miami during the GOP retreat on Monday. He said he’s asked Speaker Mike Johnson to “draw a new one” with these provisions in it, saying he believes they’re broadly popular with voters.

“I wanted to add two more to it because they’re, I say, 95 percent, maybe 100 percent,” Trump said, pointing to banning trans girls and women from sports that align with their gender identity and blocking what he has repeatedly referred to as “mutilization” of trans youth. “That should be the easiest thing to get passed that you’ve ever had. Each one, it’s ‘best of,’ best of Trump.”

There are currently no provisions in the SAVE America Act dealing with gender-affirming care or transgender athletes, despite Trump’s new priorities list. House Republicans have tried to pass anti-trans laws this session, but barely any have made it out of Congress — most have gotten stripped in the Senate. Most recently, all but one anti-LGBTQ+ provision was removed from the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. The remaining one stopped trans women enrolled at U.S. service academies from participating in athletic programs designated for women.

Caius Willingham, a senior policy analyst at Advocates for Trans Equality who frequently works on the Hill, said that there is just not enough support in the Senate to adopt these anti-trans measures. That makes Trump’s fixation on this bill all the more perplexing, he said.

“It seems as if he believes that attaching these anti-trans riders to the SAVE America Act would improve its chances in the Senate,” he said. “Putting those riders into the SAVE America Act would actually turn off more senators than it would inspire them.”

The president’s comments also directly contrast Thune’s beliefs that there is no current path for the chamber to pass the SAVE America Act as is with a “talking filibuster” — a tactic used to delay or block a vote by physically holding the floor to prevent action from the opposing party — particularly because the GOP is not unified enough to stave off Democratic amendments. While the legislation is still considered a key bill, Thune said last week that ending the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was his priority.

“The one thing I’ve said all along — and I’ve told him and others — that I can’t guarantee an outcome,” Thune said on Monday. “I can’t guarantee a result if the result is only achieved by nuking the legislative filibuster. We don’t have the votes to do that.”

Funding for DHS lapsed February 14, and frustrations have mounted as airports began to see longer security lines last week. Thune told reporters Monday that Trump has said he would sign a bill that reopens the department, adding that the president’s statement was an expression of how “passionate” he is about the SAVE America Act. When asked, many members were skeptical or unaware of how the process would play out amid still-frozen DHS negotiations.

While voter ID requirements are popular among Americans across the political spectrum, critics say the provisions in the SAVE America Act would be overly burdensome on already eligible voters and dissuade new registration, particularly in rural areas.

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said he wanted to see a version of the bill with what he called best practices on absentee and mail-in voting, which, he added, the federal government should not ban outright.

“There’s a right way to do it, a wrong way to do it. Nuking the filibuster doesn’t work. The talking filibuster would be a goat rodeo, and if we want to do the hard work, we should,” Tillis said. “I actually think that we could get 60 votes for a voter ID bill that encourages states to move forward with voter ID with certain parameters. … Then it would put pressure on Democratic states that say they don’t want voter ID. Let money flow to the states that are actually doing it up to what we consider to be best practices.”

Voting rights groups maintain the SAVE America Act would pose a barrier for millions of women and others who have changed their legal names. An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name.

With or without the SAVE America Act, trans Americans’ ability to vote has been jeopardized as more states restrict whether trans people can access accurate IDs and birth certificates, advocates say. In Kansas, trans residents’ licenses are being invalidated because of a new state law that requires gender markers to match a person’s sex at birth. Kansas requires a state ID to vote.

But, if the SAVE America Act were to pass, that would make voting harder for trans people across the country.

“Many of us could be disenfranchised as a result of the SAVE America Act,” Willingham said, referring to transgender Americans.

Democrats have consistently criticized the bill’s potential impact on married women. However, on Monday many stopped short of specifically condemning Trump’s suggestion of attaching any legislation dealing with transgender people to it.

“He’s trying to do anything he can — other than focus on the economy, because the economy is so bad,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, adding that he was not sure how serious the president’s “mad in the middle of the night” post was. “So he’s going to go to his little stock issues to keep people’s minds off rising prices.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, said he was “vehemently opposed” to the SAVE America Act, and said Trump’s “bizarre” statement only stood in the way of his own agenda.

“It’s clear that they’re not trying to save America. Donald Trump is trying to save his power at any cost, and so he’s going to ring all those familiar bells of division, because he’s running desperately and in the end it’s not going to work,” Warnock said.

Meanwhile, Thune and Republican leadership in the Senate are facing online pressure from lawmakers within their own party, to their growing irritation.

The president is not backing down in the face of criticism from fellow party members.

“It will guarantee the midterms,” Trump told lawmakers on Monday. “If you don’t get it, big trouble, my opinion.”

Passing the act has also entered key midterms races. In Texas, embattled Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has been goading Sen. John Cornyn, whom he’ll face in a May runoff, to speak up in favor of the bill. Politico reported Monday that Trump was putting off making an endorsement in the race in an attempt to pressure Cornyn and other Republicans to pass the bill.

Holding Trump accountable for his illegal war on Iran

The devastating American and Israeli attacks have killed hundreds of Iranians, and the death toll continues to rise.

As independent media, what we do next matters a lot. It’s up to us to report the truth, demand accountability, and reckon with the consequences of U.S. militarism at this cataclysmic historical moment.

Trump may be an authoritarian, but he is not entirely invulnerable, nor are the elected officials who have given him pass after pass. We cannot let him believe for a second longer that he can get away with something this wildly illegal or recklessly dangerous without accountability.

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Marissa Martinez is an economy reporter for The 19th.

Orion Rummler is a reporter for the breaking news team at The 19th. He previously anchored live news coverage at Axios, including the January 6 Capitol attack, the coronavirus and the 2020 election. He also researched “Axios on HBO” stories on former President Donald Trump and expanded the outlet’s LGBTQ+ coverage.

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