Republicans split on following Trump’s demands for restrictive voting bill

Donald Trump has demanded that congressional Republicans get to work on a party line measure that would ensure defense spending reaches its highest level in decades and also make a likely fruitless attempt to impose a host of new restrictions on voters nationwide.

In a post on Truth Social Wednesday, the president said he was “calling on Republicans in Congress to IMMEDIATELY advance and pass the forthcoming $350 Billion Reconciliation Bill”, which would also include the Save America Act, a rightwing makeover of elections that his allies in Congress have sought to pass for months, without success.

“No games, no delays, and no weak compromises! Do this ASAP,” Trump wrote.

The president’s request appears set to split Republicans, some of whom have objected to Trump’s demands to use a procedure known as budget reconciliation to enact his priorities without being held up by the Democratic minority’s use of the filibuster in the Senate. Trump’s demand is unlikely to win passage of the Save America Act, which has become a fixation of his rightwing base but has no path to enactment in the Senate.

By using budget reconciliation, congressional majorities can circumvent the filibuster and, with a simple majority of senators, pass bills that address spending, revenue and the debt limit. Republicans first used the procedure last year to approve the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which paid for Trump’s mass deportation campaign and extended an array of tax cuts, while slashing the federal government’s main health insurance and food aid programs for low-income communities.

They used it again earlier this week to pass a measure allocating $70bn to the agencies leading the White House’s deportation push through the duration of Trump’s term, after Democrats refused to vote for their funding without a slew of reforms.

In April, the White House proposed Congress approve spending of $1.5tn on defense in the 2027 fiscal year, and offset it with cuts elsewhere in the government, many of which are concentrated on social services. The request called for $1.15tn of the bill to be passed through the normal appropriations process, with the rest – $350bn – coming from a reconciliation measure.

In his Wednesday post on Truth Social, Trump indicated the latter pot of funding is necessary to pay for a host of new weapons, many of which carry his personal touches. These include the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, a “golden fleet” of Trump-class battleships and the F-47 next generation fight jet, the designation of which lines up with Trump place as the 47th president.

While the House armed services committee last week approved spending $1.15tn in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, two Republican senators publicly criticized the request to allocate the remaining funds through budget reconciliation.

“I think it’s safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill,” Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Republican leader, said at an appropriations subcommittee hearing this week on the air force’s budget.

“I agree with that assessment,” said Susan Collins, the powerful Republican chair of the appropriations committee.

Both senators’ objections centered on concerns that a reconciliation measure would not provide a sure stream of funding for defense priorities.

“I would just suggest that it is taking a terrible risk and creates instability when you’re counting on a third reconciliation bill for the bulk of the money rather than doing base funding through the defense appropriations bill,” Collins told the air force leaders.

In his opening statement, McConnell said that a one-off funding request is not appropriate for weapons systems that require spending over years, while “major disruptions” could occur if Republicans fail to reach an agreement on budget reconciliation.

“The administration’s choice to structure an ambitious $1.5tn request in this way is yet another missed opportunity to put key aspects of our common defense on a stronger and more enduring fiscal footing,” he said.

The president’s demand that the Save America Act be included appears impractical, since the policy changes it requires appear to fall afoul of the rules of budget reconciliation, and it lacks the Democratic support to clear the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

Under its provisions, voters would face new ID requirements to cast ballots, states would be mandated to regularly turn their voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security and election officials could be held legally liable if people are improperly registered to vote.

In March, the Senate voted to open debate on the bill, but the effort to pass it petered out when it became clear it did not have enough support.