President Donald Trump rolled out his new AI-powered federal website, America.gov, Tuesday with a security guarantee — that he promptly admitted wasn't true.
Trump unveiled the site at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington alongside Elon Musk, administration officials and tech industry leaders. Bloomberg reported that Trump also signed an executive order directing every federal agency to integrate its public-facing systems with the new portal.
While pitching the site's privacy protections, Trump appeared to talk himself out of his own reassurance in real time.
"Everything stays totally private. It cannot in theory be hacked into, and when they figure a way to do that, we'll end it," Trump said. "We can also counteract them if anything does happen. We think it might not happen actually."
The president then pivoted to using the launch as a sales pitch for his stalled voter ID legislation, the SAVE America Act, arguing the new site removes any remaining objection to proof-of-citizenship rules.
"Nobody can any longer complain about providing proof of citizenship or voter ID," Trump said. "They're always saying it's too complicated. It's not complicated anymore."
He added that Congress could "now can pass, in theory, The Save America Act because it takes the number one excuse away from them."
The SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to cast a ballot in federal elections, passed the House in February but has stalled in the Senate. Voting rights groups say the bill's documentation demands could disenfranchise millions, including the roughly 21 million Americans the Brennan Center estimates do not have ready access to proof of citizenship.