Republicans Look Ridiculous Selling Trump's Voter Suppression 'SAVE' Act

[00:00:00]Right now in the House, Mike Johnson and Russ Vote are trying to get Republicans on board with Trump's bag of goodies in the reconciliation package, which includes a $95 billion chunk in supplemental funding for the war in Iran and also farm aid caused by that is necessary because Trump raised fertilizer prices and energy prices so much from this war in Iran. So, um, ripping us off, ripping the taxpayer off, uh, because >> further in consolidation of farms.

[00:00:36]>> Yep. Uh, and, uh, that the reason that they need this aid is because, as I mentioned, of Trump's own choices, >> but suffice to say, there won't be more small farmers in business right now as there will be there will be fewer in the coming days. Absolutely. Months. Yeah.

[00:00:53]>> Uh, and they like this kind of consolidation, as you say. uh their donors would love to buy up farms on the cheap and continue to have uh you know monopolies across the the country, but there is we're not sure ahead of um the August recess if Republicans are going to be able to pull this off because Trump wants to shoehorn the Save America Act into the reconciliation bill which you know I don't understand how necessarily they're going to do that um or because it's not pertaining to the budget, but he wants to either nuke the filibuster or create some sort of budgetary reason for the Save America Act, I believe, to be in these negotiations and in this bill. But regardless, they're attempting to pass the Save America Act ahead of the the recess. And John Thun and the Senate are not too happy about this. But Trump wants this because it's a mass voter disenfranchisement bill based on essentially a Nazi lie about great replacement theory. Um because they are trying to claim that immigration is an attempt by the Democrats to replace white people and to uh vote in elections and take away your voice. We know that non-citizen voting in the US is so insanely rare. There have been many analyses of this and voter fraud in particular. The Heritage Foundation, which is a right-wing think tank, the right-wing think tank essentially, one arguably the most important conservative organization in the country. They looked at voter fraud instances or instances of non-citizen voting from 2003 to 2022. So almost essentially a 20-year period. You know how many times they found voter fraud or non-citizen voting? 23 instances.

[00:02:52]>> I'd also just mentioned the Heritage Foundation is named in Mahmud Khalil's uh uh um suit against the government on the Clan Act uh for conspiring with Zionist groups like Canary Mission and Betar uh to slander people for expressing their free speech and indeed persecute them for their free speech on Palestine.

[00:03:13]>> Yeah, good note. Um, so we're not Heritage Foundation fans here, but if any group has an incentive uh to overplay these instance of voter fraud, instances of voter fraud, it would be the Heritage Foundation. Now, um, here is Steve Scaliz being asked about these efforts to mandate certain kinds of ID for voting. um which would impact 9% of American citizens of voting age who don't have this kind of proof of citizenship that is required. And of course, it's going to impact people of color and marginalized communities and poorer people and rural rural people as well because of the attack and disabled people because of the attacks on mail and voting. But um that's 9% of Americans would be disenfranchised uh by this uh by the bipartisan policy centers estimates. That's 21 million people. Um and that is I think a conservative estimate here because that's just like direct. Uh there are you know something like 70 million women in this country who change who don't have on their uh birth certificate their the name that they've changed the their married name their married uh uh and that that would not suffice in terms of proving their citizenship because you need two different forms of ID based on this. Um, you need a real ID. Uh, an updated Real ID, a valid US passport or a military ID also applies. And then you would also need secondary documents like birth certificates to prove your citizenship.

[00:04:56]It's ridiculous. But, uh, Steve Scaliz doesn't seem to think so because he says that you use your voter ID all the time, including at places like the Olive Garden.

[00:05:09]>> Showing picture ID to vote, not a complicated subject. Again, anybody that gets on an airplane has to show a picture ID to vote. Nowadays, if you want to go to Olive Garden and get unlimited pasta, you got to show a picture ID. This isn't complicated stuff. Yet every Democrat is against these basic things. Why?

[00:05:31]The only reason you can be against that is if you want voter fraud.

[00:05:35]Okay, then why hasn't it happened yet, buddy? Why has there been basically no voter fraud? It's amazing. They keep doing this. Trump says you need your ID to enter a grocery store. We You're telling on yourselves, you guys, that you're rich as hell and they're so out of touch.

[00:05:50]>> We have to answer his his question. Why would anyone want to do this without um uh if not to allow illegal immigration or legal immigrants to vote? It's because uh why are they doing it? It's because they want to disenfranchise people that don't have IDs.

[00:06:02]>> Exactly. Exactly. And I just love this claim about Yeah. Okay. Perhaps to subscribe to unlimited pasta at Olive Garden, you might need to show your ID.

[00:06:15]I guess in theory, to be a part of this subscription service and prove that, hey, I'm the guy that shelled out for the Olive Garden Pasta subscription, which I got to say, I have a little bit of judgment towards you if that's the case.

[00:06:29]>> Yeah.

[00:06:30]>> I think you should be put on a government list if [laughter] you sign up for unlimited pasta from Olive Garden. Exactly. Um, what's what's also insane about what he's saying is that that doesn't even if you're to if you're going to use the Olive Garden example, bro, or the airplane example, it doesn't work because you need a secondary form of identification and citizenship. So, the ID doesn't work.

[00:06:54]>> Olive Garden is also a private business that doesn't need to serve you unlimited pasta, whereas like there should be uh you should be your vote should be taken, >> right? It's just one of the the dumber uh I guess examples that they've given in in in trying to sell this, you know, incredibly >> showing my ID to TGI Fridays.

[00:07:15]>> Yeah. I'm like th this roll back of people's, you know, franchise really and their ability to participate in elections. They can't come up with a better example for what they're trying to do here because it's all based on a conspiracy theory. And it's all at the whims of of of uh this capricious and psychotic president who sees a the only path he sees to maintaining power is through cheating >> who tried to steal the 2020 election.

[00:07:43]>> Yeah. Yeah. Remember that? That was kind of a big deal. And this comes up here.

[00:07:47]>> But now he's concerned about Yeah.

[00:07:49]election security for sure. That's what Mike Johnson and Trump really care about. He's asked Mike Johnson here about how is it helpful that Trump keeps relitigating the 2020 election. Um, and this is relevant for the Save America Act. Here he is answering this question this morning at the House Republican Presser.

[00:08:10]>> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, this is probably the last time we're going to be seeing a press conference before the House leaves for recess, members going home to campaign ahead of the midterm elections. have the control of the House is up for grabs. Last week, President Trump gave a speech relitigating the 2020 election and bringing up election fraud. Do you think it would serve your most vulnerable members and majority makers well if President Trump stopped relitigating the 2020 election and you were gone from that point?

[00:08:36]>> Well, I didn't hear him uh in that address say he wasn't relitigating the 2020 election. What he what he did was I got a couple notes here, but some of the things that he uh he announced 280,000 non-citizens have been found to be on voter roles in America. I mean, if that doesn't cry for the passage of the Save America Act into law, I don't know what does.

[00:08:57]>> Compromised American election.

[00:08:59]>> Oh, um I just want to fact check that really quickly. Uh the 278,000 non-citizens being unlawfully registered is a highly highly disputed figure. Um, most election experts say it's wildly overstated. And once again, registration, even if you were to take that claim at face value, doesn't mean that they voted in the election. Why would you in the in this context in this country when Trump is locking up people and throwing them into goologs and over 50 people have died in ICE custody so far uh during his second term? Why the hell would you risk it to vote in your local municipal election by showing up at a polling place?

[00:09:40]>> Yeah, if there's that many uh on the voting roles, you should be easily able to find out how many of them actually voted and prosecute them. Like that happens when people vote that aren't supposed to vote. They get severe consequences. Yes.

[00:09:51]>> Unless you're like a Republican and you did it uh like >> which happened >> which happens more often than what they're talking about.

[00:09:57]>> Exactly.

[00:10:00]>> Act in the law. I don't know what does.

[00:10:03]He he announced that foreign adversaries have compromised American election data and that our election system is vulnerable to threats. I mean that should concern every American citizen screed uh in his prime time address that no one cared about. Trump essentially said that the evidence showed that Venezuela has the capability to change the voting results in their own elections. But there was no evidence in the documents that he released that Venezuela could do that to the United States. And the the thing that was alleged in the text of the like so-called intelligence that he's presenting was that China considered doing an influence campaign in the United States got and and sought to publicly uh to access publicly available voter information as does the Democratic Party and the Republican party in the US and probably the Israeli government and other foreign governments because this information is available and they do they do intelligence. that was all that was alleged and they didn't even think that it was worth it to to to fund this kind of campaign. So >> every accusation is a confession. It's the same thing with like saying that China wanted Joe Biden or whatever. Like I'm sorry on balance if you're going to say which country wanted which president more, you'd say Russia wanted Trump more than China wanted Biden just relatively speaking.

[00:11:28]>> I mean frankly like Biden is uh maybe a bigger China hawk than Trump. Like if we're actually thinking about it in those terms, Biden wanted to pivot to Asia. The whole AUS thing was an attempt to curb China's influence in their region of the world. Trump is not as committed to that. He's back in the Middle East, baby. All right, keep going.

[00:11:48]>> Concern every American citizen. This isn't about relitigating 2020. This is about making sure that [clears throat] people have faith in our election system. If you do not have a free and fair election, it's very difficult to maintain a constitutional republic, a government of and for the people. I mean, this is basic stuff. The president was highlighting that some of the findings are alarming. I mean, a lot of Democrats who ran around breathlessly for years saying that Russia was intervening in our elections. You would think they'd be the first to step up and say, "Yeah, let's go investigate this and clean up vot voter roles." I mean, that is part of our message on the campaign trails. We want to make sure that >> Wait, so China has people on the voter roles? Is that what he's trying to imply? Like >> he he says that as I they have publicly available voter role information that they access. That's like cuz they wanted to do like polling to see who was which way the election was going to go. That's all the intelligence has ever alleged like at at most they would want to do with that information. It's not to like change the vote totals.

[00:12:44]>> Yes. And it is but it is funny to see him, you know, attempt to try to fit Trump's pet fixation on the 2020 election into some sort of grand electoral strategy. There's another clip. We don't even have it on the sound sheet, but he said at one point in this press conference that he was uh optimistic about the midterm elections and then corrected himself to say enthusiastic. So, I think that was a bit of an an admission that they're not necessarily sure how this is going to go for them.

[00:13:13]>> I do think it's a grand strategy, though, because he's just trying to do exact opposite. He's trying to take the faith out of elections. He's trying to make everybody cynical so that they can set up some kind of fair >> corrupted midterm. Right. Right.

[00:13:27]states, all the states including blue states are doing their dead level best to ensure that federal law is complied with what is federal law. To vote in a US election, you have to be an American citizen. That's a simple thing. It's not being it's not being enforced in some of these states. And that's why Save America Act is so important. And and we want to make sure that we don't have deceased persons on the voter role. We want to make sure that in states where they're doing ballot harvesting, they're not just >> who gives a goddamn >> about the voter roles if they don't vote. This is the slight of hand that he's doing here. He's pretending that the voter roles are the same thing repeat voter roles over and over again.

[00:14:02]It's like some sort of magic incantation that scares conservatives.

[00:14:05]>> Yes.

[00:14:06]>> Rounding these things up halfhazardly that that the exact number of ballots that are printed go to the exact number of voters who are registered in these in these districts and not extra persons.

[00:14:16]This is what makes people uh you know doubt the veracity of our election.

[00:14:20]>> No, you are because to the extent that those ballots are going to a dead person's mailbox, they're not being turned in. And if they're being turned in, then you have a case.

[00:14:28]>> Yes.

[00:14:29]>> Come to me then.

[00:14:30]>> Right. I mean, and and like there have been I remember those instances where there were examples it was disproportionately Republicans doing it >> and they're found out.

[00:14:39]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:14:41]Um uh it's insane and I and I still can't get over how they're attempting to sell this that when Trump was in power, the election was stolen from him. When Biden was in power, >> Trump won easily, right?

[00:14:57]>> Uh and it was a landslide apparently that he didn't reach 50% of the popular vote when he defeated Kla Harris. So wait, I don't understand like he's also claiming as a part of Trump was in this press conference this China interference thing that the intelligence that he was provided by members of his team including the current uh uh John Radcliffe, the current uh CIA head who was DNI at the time and was responsible for giving him this information that they withheld all of this from him. this chi this this shoddy intelligence about China that didn't really allege anything. And so it's you just have to believe so many different layers of to get to where Trump is, which is just uh it's an ego stroking exercise that he's brought the entire country along uh in this enterprise with him.

[00:15:52]Um, so let's just hope that the Save America Act uh is not included in this and even some of the provisions aren't inserted. I know that Tim Burch is unhappy with it being peacemeal, but um this could be really bad and I think there are a lot of Republicans that understand that this could impact them too, specifically in rural districts.

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