{"id":32727,"date":"2026-08-08T15:43:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T10:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32727"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:43:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T10:43:44","slug":"thune-trump-senate-conservatives-reach-deal-to-set-aside-budget-save-america-act-impasse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32727","title":{"rendered":"Thune, Trump, Senate conservatives reach deal to set aside budget, SAVE America Act impasse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), President Trump and Senate conservatives reached a deal Friday night to set aside a vote on a budget resolution and defer action on much of the SAVE America Act until after the August recess, settling a fight that had divided Senate Republicans for weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Conservative Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) emerged from Thune&#8217;s office in the Capitol after speaking with Trump and holding a two-hour conference meeting with GOP colleagues, and told reporters they had reached an agreement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They said that there&#8217;s now consensus within the conference to postpone action on a Senate budget resolution that would serve as a blueprint for a reconciliation bill until after the August recess and to vote immediately on a key element of the SAVE America Act \u2014 the requirement that voters show photo identification in federal elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Johnson, Lee and Scott, who have called on Senate GOP colleagues to cancel the August recess to debate and attempt to pass the full SAVE America Act, acknowledged they didn&#8217;t have the votes to advance that bill anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We had about a two-hour conference meeting, trying to figure out what we need to do to come to an agreement to accomplish what the president wanted,&#8221; Johnson said, acknowledging that the proposed budget resolution may have failed on the Senate floor because of a lack of enough Republican support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;There was a concern whether or not it could actually pass, the budget resolution, tonight,&#8221; he said, noting that some colleagues wanted substantially more funding for the Pentagon than the $73 billion proposed in a <a data-ylk=\"slk:House-passed budget resolution;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/5984069-house-approves-budget-reconciliation\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">House-passed budget resolution<\/a>. The budget resolution would serve as a blueprint for a party-line reconciliation bill Republicans aim to pass without needing Democratic support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;There&#8217;s certainly concern in terms of the need for our military. When the finest among us are in harm&#8217;s way, is it really enough?&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;The conclusion of the conference and then we had the discussion with the president, he agrees, don&#8217;t take the vote tonight. Just work diligently through August and September to do an actually better budget reconciliation bill.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We&#8217;re all satisfied with that. So, we&#8217;re not going to vote on budget resolution tonight and really work hard tonight,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The conservative leaders say they&#8217;re also &#8220;hopeful&#8221; on finding a way to vote soon on a continuing resolution to fund the government through Dec. 11 and to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general. Republicans had spent much of Friday <a data-ylk=\"slk:searching for a deal;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/6017663-senate-nil-bill-funding-blanche-recess\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">searching for a deal<\/a> to accelerate the timeframe for passing both priorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lee indicated that he would not force Republican colleagues to vote on a politically sensitive adjournment resolution in order to embark on a five-week recess because he was satisfied with an emerging agreement to vote instead on a bill sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) to require voters to show photo identification in federal elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lee said &#8220;of course&#8221; he&#8217;s disappointed that the SAVE America Act won&#8217;t pass anytime soon but acknowledged &#8220;we&#8217;re not in a position right now where we have the wherewithal to pass it right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;But we are going to vote on a handful of things, including the Husted measure with photo ID, which is about half of what the SAVE America Act is,&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;That will give us some indication of where we stand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Voter ID is a major component of SAVE America,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Democrats defeated Husted&#8217;s proposal to require voters to show voter identification in a 53-47 vote when he offered it as an amendment on Senate floor in March. The vote came during a lengthy debate on the SAVE America Act, which Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Democrats voted against Husted&#8217;s amendment in March despite Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer&#8217;s (N.Y.) claim that Democrats support photo ID requirements for elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Schumer told reporters in a March 15 press call that Democrats included a voter ID provision in their Freedom to Vote Act, which they introduced in 2021 when they controlled the Senate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Democrats support voter ID. In fact, we included it and it is included in our Freedom to Vote legislation several years ago. So, we&#8217;re not opposed,&#8221; Schumer said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lee said conservatives want to put Democrats on the record on the issue once again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve got many Democrats who&#8217;ve said, &#8216;I&#8217;m just fine with voter ID.'&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to find out where they are on that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Johnson said Trump signed off on the plan to wrap up the Senate&#8217;s work before the August recess.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We&#8217;re in total agreement. There&#8217;s no argument about it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Senate has already voted five times on the SAVE America Act or major elements of it but have failed to entice enough Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold for ending a filibuster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Thune has repeatedly said that Senate Republicans don&#8217;t have the votes to abolish the filibuster to pass election reform legislation, as Trump has demanded. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), President Trump and Senate conservatives reached a deal Friday night to set aside a vote on a budget resolution and defer action on much of the SAVE America Act until after the August recess, settling a fight that had divided Senate Republicans for weeks. Conservative Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.),&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/65004171a4c634a81524f7fa5207d73027bca2eb7ac141eb733bf5454674e0f4\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w900_h505%3Bquality_80%3Bformat_jpg\/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Fthe_hill_articles_341%2F0a9563dbd5357d40bf0a3aaaac69f2fb","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}