Thune accuses critics of 'creating false expectations' amid backlash over stalled SAVE America Act
FIRST ON FOX: Senate Republicans launched a test of Senate Democrats’ resolve against voter ID legislation, and while it may not look like what many wanted, Senate Majority Leader John...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: Senate Republicans launched a test of Senate Democrats’ resolve against voter ID legislation, and while it may not look like what many wanted, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued it was the only path forward. Thune has been pressured by President Donald Trump, a cohort in the Senate GOP, and a fervent online network of conservatives demanding that he activate the talking filibuster to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act. But it’s a floor tactic that Thune argued has never proven successful in passing legislation. REPUBLICANS SIGNAL NO RETREAT ON SAVE ACT AS MARATHON SENATE DEBATE KICKS OFF "Nobody really knows how this ends, and the people who are out there saying they do, don't," Thune told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Because it's never been done, or at least hasn't been done in modern history." Proponents of the talking filibuster view it as a method to blow through the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold and ensure that the SAVE America Act is passed. But it comes at the steep price of the upper chamber’s most valuable currency — floor time — which, during an ongoing shutdown, is not something lawmakers would want to give up. Thune added that Senate Democrats have also considered the move in the past under former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and noted that they "opted against it in both cases because I think they felt like the price that we would make them pay wasn't worth whatever it was they were trying to get done." GOP TRIGGERS MARATHON SENATE FIGHT TO EXPOSE DEMS' OPPOSITION TO TRUMP-BACKED VOTER ID BILL "If I saw a pathway, even if it was a small-percentage pathway of getting an outcome, I'd be more inclined to do it," Thune said. "But we looked at it, ran all the contingencies, gamed it out, mapped it out, what it would look like on the floor, did the research, studied the history, and couldn't find a single example in moder…