Ron DeSantis Dumps Bucket of Cold Water on Trump’s SAVE America Act: ‘Basically Zero’ Chance it Passes Now

L: AP Photo/Alex Brandon; R: AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) took a sharply pessimistic tone when asked for his predictions on the fate of the SAVE America Act, bluntly declaring the legislation’s chances of passing before the August recess to be “basically zero.”

President Donald Trump has vociferously called for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, demanded that the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate vote for it, and even urged them to take steps like giving up their scheduled August recess or killing the filibuster in the Senate to do so.

But some of the members of that narrow GOP majority are fighting tough re-election battles and others are now counting down their final days in office after losing brutal internecine primary battles to Trump-backed challengers, their feelings about party loyalty perhaps no longer quite so fervent.

Both Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SC) and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) have repeatedly said they do not have enough votes to pass the bill, drawing Trump’s ire but remaining adamant that the math simply is not there.

Some of Trump’s allies in Congress, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), have nonetheless pushed for a vote to cancel the pending August recess. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) denounced Lee’s move as nothing more than “self-aggrandizement” and a case of “[p]romising what you can’t achieve.”

Thune similarly told reporters this week that he didn’t see the point of cancelling the recess when the votes still weren’t there. “We  could stay here until Christmas,” he said, but the bill would not pass and Republicans would not vote to end the filibuster to pave the way.

DeSantis, who served three terms in the House of Representatives before running for Florida governor, was asked Tuesday if he thought the bill would pass by a person on X who identified as a “proud 7th Gen Floridian.”

“I think the chance the Senate actually passes a real SAVE Act before the August break is basically zero,” replied DeSantis. “Happy to be wrong about this but I don’t think I am.”

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