Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is threatening to jam up the Senate if lawmakers try to move President Donald Trump’s election integrity push through Congress before the midterms.
The North Carolina senator, a longtime headache for Trump’s MAGA base, said Thursday he would use every tool available to slow down any attempt to pass the SAVE America Act through reconciliation.
The bill, formally known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and photo identification to cast a ballot.
Trump has made the legislation a top priority as Republicans push for tougher election laws heading into November.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said ahead of Trump’s primetime address Thursday that the president would use the speech to call for stronger election security.
“I think all Americans — Democrat, Republican — should agree that we are the greatest country in the history of the world. We should have the safest and most secure elections in the history of the world,” Leavitt said.
“And what the president will be speaking about tonight will show you that perhaps that is not the case, and we need to make some adjustments moving forward, including the SAVE America Act,” she added.
But Tillis made clear he is ready to throw sand in the gears.
“If I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math,” Tillis said.
Tillis argued the bill could not be implemented in time for the upcoming midterm elections because multiple levels of government would have to change how elections are run.
“I have been trying to explain for nearly a year that the SAVE Act, whether it’s the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, the new SAVE legislation that’s being proposed in the House, SAVE goes to Hollywood, SAVE goes to Hawaii, whatever the sequels are, all of them are fundamentally flawed and impossible to implement by this election,” Tillis said.
I asked Senator Thom Tillis about his vote against the Save America act and whether it has anything to do with the money he’s receiving from industries who profit off of cheap illegal labor.
He was VERY mad about the question.
We deserve better than these America Last losers! pic.twitter.com/v9zQgzQGq7
— Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) July 14, 2026
Tillis said he supports grants to help states with voter ID, but he opposes using the budget reconciliation process to force through the SAVE America Act.
“Let’s stop the charade. Let’s stop the distraction,” he said.
“Let’s get the government funded, let’s use reconciliation if we need to, but let’s not clog it up with another piece of policy airdropped by a member of this Senate or the White House that will undermine this bill, undermine what we need to get done before the election,” he continued.
Reconciliation allows certain budget-related bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority instead of 60 votes.
Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority, but a standalone version of the SAVE America Act would still need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Democrats have remained united against the bill.
That opposition has only fueled Republican suspicion that the left fears what would happen if voters were required to prove citizenship and show ID.
A recently unearthed video showed Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan making exactly the kind of comment conservatives say exposes the real reason Democrats are fighting the legislation.
“It would be hard for any Democrat in any state to win any election,” Slotkin said of the SAVE America Act.
Slotkin did not explain why stronger voter verification would make Democrats unelectable.
Republican Rep. Tony Wied of Wisconsin quickly pounced.
“Democrats are saying the quiet part out loud,” he said. “They know they can’t win on their own merit.”
Trump has repeatedly argued that Democrats oppose voter ID because they benefit from loose election rules and weak verification.
For MAGA voters, Tillis’ threat lands like another familiar betrayal from a retiring Republican who has nothing left to fear from the base.
Democrats are blocking the SAVE America Act because they hate it.
Tillis is threatening to slow it down while claiming he supports election security in theory.
Either way, Trump’s top election integrity bill is now facing resistance from both the left and one of the GOP’s most reliable roadblocks.
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