Trump’s Demand to Cancel Senate Recess for SAVE America Act Is a Boon for Dems

Donald Trump on Monday called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to keep the chamber in Washington, DC, until it passes a voter suppression bill that the president hopes can win Republicans the midterms, or, even better, terminate the filibuster.

However, since it is unlikely that Thune will cancel the upcoming recess, in part because he wants to allow vulnerable GOP incumbents to spend most of August and the beginning of September campaigning in their home states, the only thing Trump’s demand is going to accomplish is to make his supporters feel less excited about voting for a bunch of “RINOs” in the fall that don’t support the president’s agenda and can’t even be bothered to “prevent voter fraud.”

The president and some right-wing zealots, such as Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rick Scott (R-FL), are pretending that the SAVE America Act, as the legislation is known, is a panacea. According to Trump, it would allow Republicans to win elections for the next 100 years.

However, Thune has to deal with the political reality that, even if he wanted to, he neither has the votes to pass the legislation nor to “nuke” the filibuster, which has earned him the president’s ire.

“The Dumocrats will do it on day one, and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership,” wrote Trump, who recently discovered how “dumb” is spelled and has since come up with this ingenious new slur for Democrats. “Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”

For his part, Lee has threatened Thune that he will object to any request to go into recess, which would then require a roll call vote that forces Republicans to make a choice of whether they want to sit around Washington, DC, all summer and twiddle their thumbs without passing the SAVE America Act or go home.

While that would usually be an easy decision, voting to recess would open up GOP senators to withering criticism from Trump and right-wing influencers who keep agitating their base with claims of how important the SAVE America Act is.

Oh, by the way, even if the measure were to pass, it is realistically much too late to implement the “proof of citizenship” provisions of the legislation before the midterms because it would require tens of millions of Americans to obtain documents they do not currently have.

In other words, the only people who will be hurt by Trump’s demand to cancel recess will be vulnerable Republicans who are already having to deal with a lack of voter enthusiasm on their side.