The Senate just packed up and headed home for a five-week vacation.
And America First voters got nothing to show for it on election integrity.
John Thune sent the chamber into recess without passing the SAVE America Act, and the blowback from conservatives is the kind that doesn’t cool down quickly.
What Happened in the Final Hours
The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as US Attorney General in the early morning hours, but many on the Right were furious that the body went into recess without passing the SAVE Act, which President Donald Trump had been pressing Thune and Republicans to deliver.
The SAVE Act is a voter ID measure that would place new restrictions on mail-in voting and require proof of citizenship to vote. Every Senate Democrat voted against a stripped-down version of the bill during the legislative push heading into that final session.
Senator Ashley Moody (R-FL) stayed on the floor through the night alongside Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) trying to force a vote to keep the Senate in session. “I voted NO on adjourning, and am submitting my opposition to the record,” Moody wrote on X, where she declared, “Washington is broken.”
Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) was equally blunt. “I voted NO on sending the Senate home. The American people sent us here to work for them, and I’m tired of Washington acting like getting the job done is someone else’s responsibility,” he wrote on X.
Senator Todd Young (R-IN) posted to X that he was “disappointed” in the Senate going to recess without passing the SAVE Act. “The Senate passed a number of important items this week, but I am disappointed that we failed to advance two major priorities: a budget reconciliation bill with SAVE America Act provisions and the Stop Insider Trading Act, to ban members of Congress from trading stocks,” Young wrote.
Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL) ripped his colleagues during a Fox News appearance. “Senator Mike Lee is 100% correct. This is why he has supported major changes to the Senate filibuster, essentially requiring US senators to hold the floor if they want to filibuster legislation!” Donalds said.
Representative Ralph Norman (R-SC) went further during his own Fox appearance. “The American people are paying them to do a job. They’re not doing it,” he said.
Thune’s Defense and the Filibuster Standoff
Thune’s answer to all of it has been the same for months. He doesn’t have the votes. He can’t get to 60. And he isn’t blowing up the filibuster to find out.
“We could stay here until Christmas,” Thune told reporters. “The Democrats aren’t voting for this, I’m just telling you. And Republicans are not getting rid of the legislative filibuster.”
That answer might be technically accurate. But it’s also exactly what an establishment Republican would say when he wants to run out the clock on something he never really wanted to fight for in the first place.
Trump had already told him in plain language what he expected. “John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the Budget, and the ever looming Debt Ceiling disaster, 1929!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Trump also warned, “The Dumocrats will do it on day one, and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership. Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”
And Trump is right about that. Democrats have already made clear they will nuke the filibuster the moment they claw back a Senate majority. Every day Republicans cling to it is another day they’re handing the opposition a procedural gift they’ll use to pack the Supreme Court, grant mass amnesty to illegal aliens, and lock in a permanent electoral advantage. The filibuster isn’t protecting conservatives. It’s protecting the people who never wanted to fight in the first place.
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) made the point directly, saying the American people “didn’t vote for a Republican party obsessed with preserving their own power through the manufactured filibuster.”
Republican senators told the president and Thune they plan to revisit passing pieces of the SAVE Act as part of a larger budget package when they return in September. That’s the kind of promise that tends to get softer the further away from the deadline you get.
Trump Declines to Back Thune’s Future as Leader
The most telling moment of the whole episode didn’t happen on the Senate floor. It happened in an interview.
President Trump declined to back Senate Majority Leader John Thune for a second term as Republican leader in the chamber, saying he did not want to discuss the matter.
“I don’t want to get into that necessarily,” Trump told Punchbowl News. “I get along with him. It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t have the votes,” he said, referring to Thune’s insistence that Senate Republicans cannot pass the SAVE America Act.
Trump also said, “I believe strongly in terminating the filibuster, and by the way, getting SAVE America Act approved immediately, and about 400 other things in every hour of every day.”
Trump told Punchbowl News that voters are angry at Republicans and that he is working hard to make sure the GOP wins the midterm elections and holds on to its majority in Congress.
“Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you,” Trump said. “I mean, they’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me.”
That’s not a small thing. A sitting president declining to endorse his own Senate majority leader for another term is a signal, not a throwaway line. Thune can read that as clearly as anyone.
Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) placed the blame on Democrats, but the MAGA faithful rejected that framing and laid responsibility directly at Thune’s feet. Some called for South Dakota citizens to make Thune’s life as “miserable as possible” and others branded him a flat-out failure.
That’s where things stand right now. The Senate is gone for five weeks. The SAVE Act, a commonsense measure to ensure only American citizens decide American elections, is sitting in limbo. And the establishment Republican running the upper chamber just shrugged, grabbed his briefcase, and left.
Thune has publicly claimed support for Trump’s priorities while using procedural caution as cover to slow the agenda down. The SAVE Act fight is just the latest example of that pattern. He’ll come back in September with a plan to fold pieces of the bill into a larger budget package, offer that as a win, and hope the base forgets what happened this week. Some will. Most won’t.
But the broader picture is this: Democrats will end the filibuster the first chance they get. They’ll use it to reshape the courts, import a new voter base through amnesty, and add states to permanently tilt the electoral map. Republicans who keep the filibuster alive to block their own president’s priorities aren’t playing defense. They’re handing the Left the weapon it needs and calling it institutional wisdom.
And the voters who showed up for Donald Trump in 2024 aren’t going to keep showing up for a party that treats their mandate like a suggestion.
Sources: Mediaite, Axios, The Hill, Washington Examiner, Punchbowl News, OAN, FL Voice News, Daily Signal, Breitbart, Western Journal
