Transcription
This week, the United States Senate will consider the Save America Act, a bill that frankly started as a political stunt. When it was first proposed in 2024, no one thought much of it. No one except Donald Trump. In this episode, I'll explain how a political stunt turned into something that is now threatening democracy and what we can all do to fight back. Look, it's going to be a journey and you're not going to want to miss it. So, sit back, grab a drink, and enjoy the ride. But before we get into it, subscribe to this channel to stay informed about how you can defend democracy.
So, by now you've all heard of the Save Act or the Save America Act. They're both basically the same bill. But what you need to know is that the origin of this story was not as serious legislation. I know what you're thinking. It's still not serious legislation. And that is true. It is just Donald Trump's latest effort to try to take control of the 2026 midterm elections, which he now understands he is going to lose if we have free and fair elections. So, we're going to get into all of why it's a voter suppression bill and how we have to fight back about it.
So, I want to start at the beginning of this tale uh which is back in the spring of 2024. Uh Donald Trump is running for election. Joe Biden is in office and Republicans are trying to figure out who is going to lead them. Mike Johnson who had emerged sort of as a backbencher uh and becomes the speaker of the house uh under you know after frankly no one else could get sufficient votes to become the speaker of the house. He is hanging to his job by a thread. Marjorie Taylor Green, the Republican from uh Georgia, who at that time was very, very MAGA. She's had a bit of a journey herself as you all know, but at that point she was very, very MAGA and she is threatening to bring a motion to the floor to vacate the speakerhip, essentially to kick Mike Johnson out of the chair. And Johnson is panicked. And so he goes down to Mara Larco on a rush basis to throw together a press conference and during it he announces that Republicans in the House are going to bring to the floor a piece of legislation to combat noncitizen voting.
Until this point, frankly, non-citizen voting was not on the top of the agenda of House Republicans. the only person who cared about this lie that somehow there are large numbers of non-citizens who vote. And it is a lie. There are not large numbers of non-citizens who vote. There are not even really small numbers of non-citizens who vote. There are vanishingly few if any non-citizens who vote in this country. So when you're talking about, you know, elections with hundreds of millions of people participating or tens of millions of people participating or even congressional district, 80, you know, 80 to 100 thousand in a primary and, you know, double that, triple that in a general election, you know, you're talking about at most, you know, fewer than the number of voters you could fit on this one hand. So it is not a problem and it was not the thing that was top of mind for House Republicans. But Mike Johnson realized that Donald Trump had been lying about non-citizen voting for years. I mean, Donald Trump lied about non-citizen voting in 2016. He lied about non-citizen voting obviously after 2020. And he has continued to lie about non-citizen voting ever since. I did a video on Donald Trump's election denialism. If you have not watched it, it would be a good time to watch it after this video. So, don't leave. watch this video first, but then watch that one because it will give you the history going all the way back to 2012 of Donald Trump's lies about uh elections and his election denialism. So, we'll put a link to that in the description below so you can watch that video next.
But in any event, Donald Trump though is obsessed with non-citizen voting and Mike Johnson knows that. And Mike Johnson also knows that if he's to block Marjgery Taylor Green from essentially kicking him out of being the speaker, he knows that the best tool, the only tool available to him is Donald Trump. Because even though at that point like Donald Trump is under indictment all around the country in various criminal cases and you know he is discredited in a lot of places, he still has a grip over the House Republican conference and they are not going to kick him out if Donald Trump is embracing Mike Johnson. So he goes down to Marlo, they do this press conference and like I said, he announces, Mike Johnson does, that they're going to bring forward a bill on noncitizen voting. And with that, the Save Act was born.
So it's important to review what was in the Save Act because Republicans have recast the SEVE Act as principally a voter ID bill and and that's not true. It is absolutely not true. So look, the original SAVE Act had four big provisions in it. The first is that it required proof of citizenship to register to vote. Now, this is a provision you have heard a lot about because it would disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and it would disproportionately impact married women who changed their last name. Now, why married women who change their last name? Actually, it would affect anyone who has changed their last name. But since married women make up the largest proportion of people who change their last name, we oftentimes frame it in terms of married women. It would also impact firsttime registrants, more transient voters, uh, and younger voters. And here's why. Because there are only two documents that in our country prove citizenship. I mean, there actually three naturalization papers. Donald Trump's not so much interested in uh people who have become US citizen voting. But yes, if you have naturalization papers, then you would be able to prove citizenship. But for people born in this country, there are only two forms of paperwork that prove citizenship. The first is a US passport, a valid current US passport. The problem is most people in America don't have passports. They don't like have any reason to get a passport. It costs money to get a passport. They're not traveling abroad. And if they once had a passport, it may have expired. So that's one category, right? US passports. The only other document that proves citizenship is an original or a certified copy of a birth certificate. The irony here is that as I am recording this, Donald Trump is in the Supreme Court trying to remove from that list of documents that would prove citizenship birth certificates. Why? because he's trying to do away with birthright citizenship, which means that having a certificate of birth showing that you were born in the United States would no longer prove citizenship. But he's going to lose that case. And so for purposes of this law, if you have a birth certificate that shows that you were born in the United States, that proves citizenship. But here's the rub. Most of you sitting out there don't have access to your original birth certificate. I mean, maybe you do. Maybe you're a packrat and you kept it with you and it's uh you know it's in a drawer in your house. But for many many people their original birth certificate was either lost to the history of time or if they're younger their parents have it maybe in a lock box someplace and so they don't have that piece of paper. They may have a copy of their birth certificate. They may have something they can print off off the internet that uh uh is a birth certificate but they don't have the original. And so without one of those two documents, they cannot prove citizenship. And just go try getting an original copy or a certified copy or birth certificate. You'll find out it takes a lot of paperwork. It takes a lot of time. And in most places it costs money. So it's not an easy thing to do.
But that's only part of the challenge if you've changed your last name. Because if you change your last name, of course, the name on the birth certificate won't match the name on your driver's license or other documentation from which you're using to prove identity for purposes of registering to vote. By the way, if you're someone sitting there saying, "But don't driver's license prove citizenship?" No, they don't. If you're asking if real IDs prove citizenship, no, they don't. in 45 states. There are five states that issue a form of Real ID driver's license that can prove citizenship. But that's that's not the majority of the country. It's only five states. So for most of us, we're stuck with passport or birth certificate. But as I said, if you are someone who's changed their last name, either through marriage or for other reasons, then the names won't match. So now you're going to need at least one more piece of paper that again is an original or certified that connects the two. And that's the second provision of the Save Act as it was originally introduced. It was proof of citizenship and then exact name match as a way to penalize married women. Now, why would Republicans want to penalize married women? For the same reason they want to penalize the other groups that are affected by this, first-time registrants, young voters, minority voters, and transient voters. So, look, this the Republicans know what they're doing. They're targeting communities that they think don't support them politically while sucking up to Donald Trump.
Now, there's more to that original Save Act. It put penalties, both civil and criminal, on election officials who might, for example, make a mistake and register someone who doesn't present that paperwork. Yeah. All of a sudden, our crisis of getting good people to be willing to be election officials will get that much harder as Republicans put in place civil and criminal penalties for people who gave up their time, who volunteered or worked for low pay to help administer elections and who may make a mistake in the way in which they implement this new law, which by the way takes effect immediately. So there'll be no training time, no opportunity to road test it. It would take place immediately. That's the third provision. The final one uh in the original law required states to purge non-citizens more intentionally and more regularly.
So, just to recap, the original Save Act as uh introduced in 2024 as a message bill, that is not a bill Republicans intended to pass, but just a bill that they intended to uh you know put out there to satisfy Donald Trump. Uh had these four provisions, proof of citizenship, exact name match, penalties for election officials, and purging. After this got introduced, and there were some press releases in the spring of 2024, the House of Representatives like went back to its business, right? And it had a lot of important business in 2024. Among other things, there was the potential for a government shutdown. Yeah, you'll remember if you go back and think in your mind, the government was almost shut down in the weeks leading up to the 2024 elections. In fact, Donald Trump urged Republicans shut down the government in the middle of the campaign. But he didn't just ask them to shut it down for any reason. He said, quote, "If Republicans don't get the SAVE Act and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a continuing resolution in any way, shape, or form." That's what he posted on social media as House Republicans and Senate Republicans were just trying to make a deal so that they could all go home, they could campaign, and then come back after the election and deal with the budget. Donald Trump remembered the promises that had made to him and he wanted the Save Act as he said every ounce of it. But even at that time, it didn't include ID. Right? So when Republicans tell you now the Save Act was an ID bill and has always been an ID bill, that's just a flatout lie.
I mean, what I am going over are the facts. You can look it up yourself uh uh online or even better, you can become a subscriber to democracy. That's the news outlet I founded in 2020 to provide you with news, information, and analysis. everything you need to know about what's happening to voting and democracy and the courts. Go ahead and sign up now. The link is on the screen in front of you or in the description below and you will get access and information about everything we're talking about in this video. You'll also help support the good work that the team does. The good news for the rest of us and the bad news for Donald Trump uh is that House Republicans did not follow his directions and did not pass uh any ounce of the Save Act, but did pass a continuing resolution. And so the SAVE Act did not pass in 2024. And as we headed into 2025 and now Donald Trump is taking office, everyone again assumed the Save Act was dead. I mean, after all, this was a messaging bill to begin with. It never really made any sense. It was going to disenfranchise a whole lot of people. Like, it was on an issue that doesn't that for which there's no real problem. And Republicans had bigger things to do like lowering the taxes on the rich, raising them on the poor, cutting healthcare, right? Their usual agenda. And everybody just figured that Donald Trump had moved on. Well, that wasn't true. Donald Trump never moves on from election subversion. He never moves on from voter suppression. This is one of the big lessons that I feel like we all have to learn. Like you and I may move on because like there's a war that Donald Trump started. Uh, we may move on because the the cost of gasoline and inflation is through the roof. We may move on because like there's an election coming up. Donald Trump never moves on from election in Iowa. It is the one piece of the mega movement that is sacred, right? Think about it. Like tariffs come and go, immigration enforcement, you know, waxes and waines. The one thing that never changes is Donald Trump's focus on election annihilism, voter suppression, election subversion. And it is the one thing that no matter where you are in the MAGA movement, whether you are in its most moderate wing or in its most extreme wing, it's the thing you have to play filty to. Which is why House Republicans voted for this bill in 2024 and why as we get to the spring of 2025, they again vote for it. But once again, the thought is that this bill isn't going anywhere because Democrats can block it in the Senate. Even if for some reason there was energy behind this bill and it moved from the House to the Senate and John Thun wanted to take up floor time and bring it up, the thought was it's not going to go anywhere because it would need 60 votes in order to pass the Senate and Republicans don't have 60 votes.
Oh, if only life was that simple. Because by January of 2026, Donald Trump is in a stone cold panic about the midterm elections. At this point, there have been enough special elections and off-year elections that everybody knows he's in for a shellacking come November. And when you look at what happens within his administration in January, you see a familiar pattern. This is when he gives the interview to the New York Times saying that he wished he had seized ballots in 2020. This is when it was reported that he says he wished there wouldn't even be midterm elections. This is when he floats the idea that Republicans should take over the voting in 15 or more places. Yeah. The legacy media, they keep reporting it that he wants to federalize elections. He has never said the words federalize elections. What he said is that Republicans should take over the voting and then he said we should nationalize the voting, right? Which is a long way from federalizing elections. Federalizing elections make it sound like, you know, you want uniform poll hours or like, you know, uniform ballot design. He's not interested in that. He wants, as he has posted on social media before, to take over the tabulating and counting of ballots. Donald Trump wants to cut to the chase. When he says take over the voting, he means the voting. He means who gets to put a ballot in the box and who gets to count the ballot and certify the election results. That's the only part of the elections he gives a about. The rest of it is all window addressing.
So all of this though is happening in January because he is escalating the attacks on voting because he's panicked and Mike Johnson is panicked and John Thun who everyone thought was safe right remember all the conventional wisdom remember all the legacy media saying oh Senate out of reach senate's not out of reach you know I'm not saying that right now Democrats will take control of the Senate I'm also though not going to say they're not going to take control of the Senate there is a path for Senate Democrats to take control, especially if Donald Trump's approval ratings keep plummeting. And that's the other thing that's happening in January is that Donald Trump's polling is cratering. Donald Trump is sitting in the in the White House and he is seething because he's not popular. He is seething because there are going to be elections. Everyone's telling him he can't cancel them. He is seething because his department of justice at the same time which is suing 30 states and the District of Columbia to access their most sensitive voter data, their voter files and which requested that data from all 50 states and some states gave it but most states didn't. He's seething that lawyers like me, yep, me are fighting him in court right now. my law firm and I we're we're in 30 courts around the country fighting against his accessing the most sensitive voter data through the Department of Justice. This is your name, your address, your social security number, whether you're a registered Democrat or Republican, whether you vote in primaries or general elections or both, whether you vote if you're an independent, whether you vote in Democratic primaries, that would tell them something interesting. Whether you vote by mail or in person, whether you vote early or on election day, right? It's a full picture. A lot of states includes your racial data. It's a full picture of who you are at the individual level. It's the building block for all voter turnout operations and for all voter suppression efforts. So, Donald Trump is trying to multitask getting his hands on that data because he's frustrated with the courts. So far, we have not lost a case and DOJ has not won a case and the and they are panicked about that. And so Donald Trump in January, you can just see the wheels turning that he has to figure out a way to raise the stakes on voter suppression, election subversion. So someone in the White House presumably dusts off the old Save Act and creates the Save America Act.
Now, how is it different? The Save America Act is the Save Act plus two provisions. One, it added a voter ID requirement. Now, this is where Republicans have emphasized what's in the Save Act. But of course, the Save Act was four things before voter ID ever entered the equation. And of course, the specifics of what they are calling voter ID have actually not that much to do with voter ID. So, why do I say that? Yes, it requires photo ID at the polls. It requires that uh in a very strict way. So, it's a very narrow set of documents that allow you to prove identification, narrower than probably where most of you vote, even if you're in a state with voter ID. The second thing is it specifically excludes from those documents any form of stateisssued ID from an educational institution. So, the state of North Carolina, the state of Texas, they can issue gun permits, they can issue driver's licenses, they can even issue workplace IDs for their government workers, and those can all be used unless those government workers work at a state university or college, at which point they can't be used. Isn't that curious? So, if you work for the state of North Carolina, you can use your government issued ID, but if you work for the state of North Carolina and you are working at the University of North Carolina, you cannot. Now they targeted students presum presumably here because students get educational uh issued IDs but they also targeted college professors university umh faculty and uh uh and staff right and so that's like an example of how strict the photo ID is.
There's another provision in it that really gives away the game of why they put the ID law in because it requires a copy of your photo ID be submitted when you apply for an absentee ballot and when you send your absentee ballot in. Now, how the hell is that going to work, right? How is it going to work that you let's assume you send in the ID to get the absentee ballot? Okay, so now you've got the absentee ballot. Now, you've got to return your absentee ballot. You've got the envelope that it came in. You've got the outer envelope or the sometimes called the return envelope. The envelope you're going to send the ballot back in. You've got the ballot. And then in many states, you have a secrecy envelope, right? Those of you who remember the Pennsylvania drama of last cycle, the cycle before, naked ballots, remember these are ballots that are not put in the secrecy envelope, but are put directly in the outer envelope or the return envelope, I should say. Yeah. And those ballots, according to the Republicans, should never count. Yeah. Yeah. They went to court to say those ballots should be thrown in the trash. Then there's like what if it's in the security envelope, the security envelope isn't sealed. Republicans don't think those should count either. I think you're starting to spot a trend here. Republicans used this provision, which is ostensibly about ID, to really make it very hard to obtain a mail-in ballot and to vote a mail-in ballot because now you're sitting there and you got your ballot and your return envelope and your secrecy envelope and now you got to go get a copy of your ID. By the way, how long until the Republicans say it can't just be a copy, it's got to be a notorized copy or a certified copy or something else, right? I mean, like, come on. I'm not dumb. Like, that's going to be that's going to be the standard because they're going to say, "Well, you can't just believe a a photocopy." I mean, anyone can make a photo copy, right? So, but let's just say it's just a photo copy. So, now you've got you fill out your ballot and you put it in the secrecy envelope and now you've got the ballot in a secrecy envelope and you've got your return envelope and you've got this piece of paper that is a photocopy of her ID. Where does it go? Because you know, wherever you put it, the Republicans are going to say it's the wrong place. If you put it in the secrecy envelope, they're going to say, "No, it needed to go in the outer envelope." If you put it in the outer envelope, they're going to say, "No, it needed to go in the secrecy envelope." Or they're going to say, "There needs to be another envelope." I think that's going to probably be their answer. So now you've got the ballot, a secrecy envelope, and a ID copy return envelope. And you're supposed to sort all this out. And if anything gets confused with the other or one envelope's in another or one thing is in someone else's envelope, the ballot gets thrown out. And that assumes that the postage then works when you're now adding all the rest of this paper in a document folder or in a envelope that was not intended to carry another piece of paper. Now, maybe if this terrible bill was going to first take effect in 2028, they'd work all this out. But no, this bill, if it's passed, takes effect this year. this year immediately.
Let's go back to the criminal provisions. Would you be an election worker trying to administer what I just described, facing criminal penalties or the private right of action for someone to sue you if you don't have the paper in the right envelope or you count a ballot that was not with the right copy in the right place? I mean, this is just classic voter suppression. It is like asking voters to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. It's just setting people up to fail because they don't want people voting by mail.
The other provision that's in the Save America Act that was not in the original Save Act is also reminiscent of what I mentioned is going on in court because it requires the states to share their voter roles. Remember how I said that the DOJ was in court trying to get access to 30 states confidential voter data? Remember I said they went to all 50 states and some of them gave them but most fought, including some red states. Remember I said that my law firm is fighting on behalf of voters to prevent the turning over of this confidential information that will be used by the Trump administration to kick people off the roles at scale. What do I mean by scale? I don't mean person here or person there. I don't mean non-citizens, which you know, if they just used it for that, like I said, remember the count on one hand. Yeah. No, no, no. At scale. I mean hundreds of thousands of voters at a time. And we have precedents for the Republican party doing that, trying to do that in Georgia in the past, in North Carolina most recently. Let me tell you something. This is coming everyone. And if you are not aware of it, it's because you don't subscribe to Democracy Docket. So do me a favor right now. Click on the link in front of you or in the description below and become a Democracy Docket subscriber. I founded Democracy Docket to give you the news, information, analysis you need to understand what is going on with Democracy in court and elections and how we fight back. And I spend a lot of my time and energy trying to keep you all informed and the way you can help me do that while also supporting the 25 person team at Democracy Docket. I think last time I said it was 22. I think it's now grown to 25. uh 25 person team at Democracy Docket is by subscribing. There are free options, there are paid options if you want to chip in and help make sure it stays free for everybody else. But please, one way or another, sign up now.
So, this bill will require the states to give their voter roles, all of that data to the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah. You know, the Doge guys. Yeah. Can you imagine? The Doge guys are going to have your sensitive voter information. DHS is gonna run this against God knows what kind of database and who knows what's going to come out the other end. I do. I mean, I know exactly what's going to come out the other end. It's going to be a big old list. It's going to be a big old sloppy list and it's going to disenfranchise a whole lot of you. Mark my words. Fact that you were born in the United States won't matter. Fact you were raised in the United States won't matter. The fact that you voted for 30 years won't matter. They're going to use this to try to influence the outcome of the election. And the only way they can do that is by challenging these voters at scale. And that is why the Department of Justice is suing so aggressively to get this data. It is the reason why Donald Trump wants the Senate to shut down all other business to pass this bill. This has nothing to do with voter ID, everyone. This has to do with getting her to mail and voting, voter purges, and making it very hard to register to vote because in addition to all of the challenges I said about uh proof of of citizenship, you also can't register online. Yeah. You can't register by mail. You have to register in person. So, this is about shutting down voter registration. It's about it's about purging voters. It's about um uh uh it's about shutting down mail-in voting. It's not about ID.
Now, Donald Trump got even more anxious and even more desperate at the State of the Union. Now, I wrote about this for Democracy Dogget before the Legacy Media ever mentioned it because I spotted that in the prepared text, not in his ad living, in the prepared text, he described the Save America Act as having another provision, which is a ban on mail and voting. Now, the legacy media treated this as it was just like a glitch in his head. But I I said it's not a glitch. It's it's literally in the prepared text. That prepared text went through lawyers. It went through policy experts such as they are this administration going through through the Department of Justice. This was not an error. I said he is adding a provision to the Save Act and nobody is listening to me when I say this. I mean, you all may have listened. The regions of democracy listened, but too few people in legacy media did because they didn't want to believe it. they wanted to both sides this. Then he posted on social media that the Save Act needed to have a whole bunch of provisions, the ones we just went through banning mail and voting and then a couple of provisions that target the trans community. And again, the first time he posted this, the legacy media was like, "Oh, this must be a formatting mistake." You know, he had the Save America Act and then he had numbers, but he must not have meant them all in one bill. And I was like, "No, he definitely means them all in one bill. I just wish the legacy media would treat him with the skepticism that he has so richly deserved. I mean, he has earned to not be trusted when it comes to elections. And he has earned to be taken at his word when he says he wants to undermine those elections and subvert the results. And instead, the legacy media treats it like when he says he thinks he doesn't really mean them and they are like pre preemptively apologizing for his imprecision. Remember after 2020, these are the folks who are like, "Oh, he just needs time to grieve. He just needs time to process the loss. And I was like, he doesn't need time to process the loss. I was telling you before the election he's going to do this, which I was like, it's going to get worse because you all keep treating him as if this is normal and it's totally not normal. And then we wound up with January 6th. And so here we are.
So Donald Trump added abandon mail and voting and these anti-trans provisions and he now refers to the Save America Act as the quote watered down version. He doesn't mean that as a compliment. He does not want the Senate to pass the watered down version. He wants them to pass the full version that at least is honest to say we want to get rid of mail-in voting. You know, the ID provision was always about getting rid of mail in voting. And at least now he is saying that um directly and you know, they're trying to seize the voter data through the courts. They're trying to seize the voter data uh uh perhaps through search warrants and and and uh and subpoenas. I mean, that's a whole other video what's going on in Fulton and Maricopa that you all are probably familiar with. But but they're trying to get this voter data and and now they're trying to do it through uh through this law. But here's the thing. Republicans don't have the vote. They don't have enough votes in the Senate to pass the Save Act. I know that. You know that. John Thun has said this out loud. He has said it to the public and he has said it to Donald Trump. So, Donald Trump knows this. So, then what are we doing? What are we about to embark on this week as Senate Republicans bring the SAVE Act to the floor?
There are two answers. One, Senate Republicans think they are doing theater. Remember messaging bills? Like they think they're doing that, right? That they'll put on a show, they'll hold the floor, they'll give a bunch of speeches, they'll say that, you know, all of these provisions are common sense and required. They will dress up this massive voter suppression power grab into something that is as palatable as it can be even though they are on the precipice of historic electoral defeat because they don't have a choice. Donald Trump wants the show so they're going to give him a show but that's not the end of the story because at the end of the show it's not going to pass. It's going to get defeated and Donald Trump is going to get enraged. And the thing we know about Donald Trump is he never lowers the temperature, he raises it. So remember, this started as a messaging bill as part of a press conference that turned into an effort to try to get Republicans in the House to shut down the government to pass that then turned into a bigger bill that now has turned into an even bigger voter suppression effort. And when that fails, Donald Trump is going to escalate. How many times have we watched this movie before in 2020? He lies about mail and voting. He tells even more outrageous lies about mail-in voting. He loses the election and he sues and the lawsuits start losing and the lawsuits keep losing and he is getting humiliated and he's getting angry and the theories are getting crazier and finally he loses in the US Supreme Court. And then comes January 6th and violence. It's not just elections. He lied about immigrants. He told terrible lies about immigrants. Those lies got more and more crazy. Then he took action at the border. Then he took action in the country. And that action got more and more arbitrary and more and more aggressive until eventually it became violent. ICE agents, CPP agents killing US citizens on the streets of Minneapolis, harassing US citizens in neighborhoods, threatening US citizens with arrest, threatening US citizens with being put on lists that nobody can figure out where who maintains them or what they're used for. All of that we saw was the same kind of escalation.
We are in an election year. Donald Trump has already said that if the Save Act is not passed, and it will not pass, he is going to issue an executive order. As he said, he's going to enact this with or without Congress. He does not have the constitutional authority to do so. I know this both because I am a lawyer and a constitutional expert, but also because my law firm and I defeated his last executive order trying to take over voting. And the trial court that issued the decision said that the president has no role in administering our elections. The states do as the primary regulator under the time, place, and manner clause, right? They are allowed to set the time, place, and manner of elections. And Congress through legislation can override the states. That's what the Save Act is, right? It's an effort by Congress to override the states. There is no provision, however, that gives the president any role. But that's not going to stop him. He's going to issue an executive order that will be outrageous that the legacy media will try to both sides and which we will defeat in court. But that itself won't be the end of the story. He's going to keep escalating. The Department of Justice is his personal law firm to effectuate his political prosecutions and his political agenda. And right now, his political agenda is overthrowing the will of the people if they vote against Republicans in the fall. So that's where we are. Donald Trump is building towards the November elections, step by step by step, escalation by escalation by escalation. And rather than you and I normalizing it and accepting it as just kind of like the way it is, we need to stand up. We need to stand tall. And we need to fight back peacefully.
So, what does that look like? Well, first of all, I need everyone who is watching this video or listening to this podcast to call your member of Congress right now. In particular, your two US senators. And I don't care what state you're from. I don't care if you're from a state with two Democratic senators or two Republican senators or somewhere else. Every senator needs to hear from you that you oppose the Save America Act, that you oppose any voter suppression law, and that this issue, this issue, this Save Act will determine your vote. Okay? That's what you need to tell them. You need to tell them you oppose the SAVE Act or the Save America Act, that you are paying attention, and that this issue, how they vote on this, will determine who you support in the next election. There is no politician who does not pay attention to those calls. I don't care. I don't care if they're in the bluest or the reddest seat. They pay attention to phone calls. So, I need you to make those calls now. You can go through the capital switchboard or you can call their office directly. But you need to let them know that what's going on in the Senate is dangerous and you don't support it. If you got some extra time, call your member of Congress, too. You know what? Never hurts to let the House know also what you think about this because this bill may eventually wind up in in a worse form in the House. So, we need all the Democrats to line up against it and we need as many Republicans as possible to know that you're watching. There are some Republicans who are going to oppose this bill. Lisa Marowsky says she opposes it. I think Tom Tillis may oppose it. Susan Collins was the 50th vote in support of it. Yeah, Susan Collins. Susan Collins was the 50th name to co-sponsor this bill. So, if you're in Maine, call her. We need to call our senators and make sure they know, like I said, that we are watching and that this is the bill that will first and foremost determine who you support the next time that there is a Senate election in your state.
We also need to educate our friends, our families, our neighbors, our social media feeds because there's a lot of misinformation going on right now. Republicans keep saying this is just a voter ID bill and that it is supported by 80 plus% of the population. That is not true. 80% of the population does not support the Safe Act. 80% of the population may or may not support some form of voter ID. I have no idea. But I've described to you what's in this bill. So describe it to others. I've written about this on Democracy. If you need something to share, go there right now and look at what I've written and you can share that content out. Or you can just share this video, right? You just hit the little share button. While you're at it, hit the subscribe button to make sure uh that you're subscribed to this channel and leave me a comment because I like to hear what you think about this video. I like to hear overall what you think about the channel and the job that Democracy Docket is doing. So, please call your senators, speak out on this bill, share it as widely as you can, and then pay attention because for the next few days, there's going to be a lot of misinformation going on here. you need to be consuming accurate information and sharing accurate information, letting your elected officials know. But then on the other side of this, on the other side of this debate is going to come something worse and we cannot stop paying attention and stop engaging then. So please join me in becoming a democracy subscriber. Join me in the fight for democracy. Join me and together we will protect free and fair elections in 2026 and beyond. Thanks. I'll see you next time.