House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) lashed out at far-right rebels in his caucus as their plan to force passage of the SAVE America Act crumbled around them on Tuesday, CNN reported.
The SAVE America Act, pushed aggressively by President Donald Trump for months, would add draconian new requirements to voter registration and verification, billed as proof-of-citizenship requirements, that would make it vastly more difficult for millions of people to vote. It doesn't have the votes to pass in the Senate.
The plan, spearheaded by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and backed by figures like Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), was to pass a rule attaching the legislation to the must-pass defense spending bill, and play chicken with the Senate to force them to adopt it or let Pentagon funding lapse. However, 14 House Republicans crossed the aisle to oppose the rule, blowing up the plan and leaving the House floor paralyzed.
According to the report, while Johnson watched the votes come in against him, "the speaker walked up to two of the lawmakers voting against him with a stark warning," telling Luna and Burchett "that they were wrong, they don’t get it and that their votes would lead to embarrassment, according to three sources familiar with the remarks."
The Republicans didn't shift their votes, and Luna remained defiant in conversation with reporters, saying, “The fact that I’m being singled out because I know procedure — I’m not stupid. I’m going to fight on behalf of the American people. They’re saying they won’t, so now that you saw what happened on the floor.”
All of this comes as the Trump administration, under pressure by a court order, quietly scraps a major proof-of-citizenship database controlled by the Department of Homeland Security, blowing up a major provision of the SAVE America Act that would have required states to use it.