After we recorded this episode, Trump gave a speech demanding for a third time that Republicans pass the SAVE Act, reinforcing the dynamic we discuss here.
President Trump has been demanding that congressional Republicans pass the SAVE Act, which is a massive voter suppression measure. In several angry rants, he’s demanded that they do this rather than doing anything else. But a funny thing is happening. Trump’s order to Republicans is actually trampling on the GOP’s midterm message. Republicans badly want to appear really, really focused on costs and the economy, and a new poll shows they’re in a big hole in the midterms—yet Republicans are still totally in thrall to Trump. So now what do they do?
Norm Ornstein: Always good, Greg.
Ornstein: Let’s say, Greg, to start with, that every Republican out there talking point is, this is about voter ID, which is supported by 90 percent of Americans. That’s not what the SAVE Act is about. The first thing it’s about is proof of citizenship before you can register to vote, much less vote. And you have to go physically now, even if you’re registered, to a voting office to re-register with a passport, a passport card, or a birth certificate. And to get a passport or passport card if you don’t have one, you need not just any birth certificate—an embossed birth certificate—all of which are costly.
It is nationalizing the election process in a bad way.
“It must be done immediately. It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as president, will not sign other bills until this is passed, and NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION GO FOR THE GOLD...DO NOT FAIL!!!”
Ornstein: The fundamental problem that Republicans have is that the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass, is one that they have used over and over when Barack Obama was president, when Joe Biden was president. Democrats, even when they had 59 votes, couldn’t get anywhere if all the Republicans opposed it. That’s where they are now. They have 53 Republicans and they don’t have seven Democrats to pass the SAVE Act. So if they’re going to do this, they are going to have to violate their own promises and change the rules so that you can get to a point where a majority can pass the bill.
Ornstein: This is bizarre in some ways—by promising that he won’t sign anything else, he is not only taking off the table getting funding for TSA, FEMA, and the other parts of the Department of Homeland Security, but he’s also blowing up whatever is left of the agenda of House Republicans, who are teetering at the edge of losing their majority and want to have something to show for it.
If Senate Republicans believe that they could lose their majority in the Senate, they will in a nanosecond change their rules to jam through the SAVE Act so that their voter suppression can guarantee them a victory even when the vast majority of voters are opposed to them. So I’m a little more worried about their being able to do this — not because Donald Trump is bloviating about it, but because they’ll do anything to save their own skins, even if it destroys democracy.
Ornstein: It is certainly entirely possible, if you think about who the voters are who don’t have a passport, who don’t have a birth certificate handy, who otherwise would have trouble coming up with what is a poll tax—$130 to $165 to get a passport, $65 for a passport card, but to get that you need a birth certificate. Somebody texted me today that they just got a birth certificate—it cost them $80 to get the embossed one.
And if it were just a voter ID, or even the hurdle of a passport—which is unconstitutional, it requires a poll tax—but if it were all of that and that were all, I would say you don’t know who will be disenfranchised, even though it’s a horrible thing to do in a democracy, to take away legitimate votes. It’s the other part of it that we talked about before: giving all of this sensitive voter information to the Department of Homeland Security.
Sargent: Well, there’s this interesting tension and conflict among Republicans right now, and it centers on vote by mail. You’ve got a lot of Republicans who actually understand that vote by mail is kind of their friend in some states. And Donald Trump still doesn’t understand that, because in his own head, the only thing he’s able to think about with vote by mail is that it somehow was connected to his 2020 loss. He’s not able to think his way out of that thought bubble. And so you’ve got all these Republicans who don’t, I think, want to do some of this stuff in the SAVE Act—secretly. They can’t say that out loud, but Donald Trump is kind of trying to force them to do it. It couldn’t be happening to a bunch of nicer assholes, really.
And at the same time, look at what the Postal Service has just done recently—quietly, it’s gotten almost no attention. When you put a piece of mail in the mailbox, as soon as it gets to the post office, it’s been postmarked. So I put a piece of mail in today, on March 9, it gets picked up, it would be postmarked either the 9th or at the latest the 10th. They’ve now said that they will not give a postmark to a piece of mail — not when it’s picked up, not when it goes to the post office—but until it gets to the sorting center. And what’s going to happen is, if we still have voting by mail, where in most states, if you’re postmarked, your vote-by-mail ballot before Election Day—even if it arrives after, because the mail sometimes is slow — it can be counted.
And I want to circle back and say that this notion of taking sensitive voter information is not an entirely partisan issue. In Idaho, which is as red a state as you will find, the state has said, no, we are not voluntarily going to turn over our voting data to you—you can misuse it, and besides, the Constitution gives the authority over elections to the states. Who are you to take away that authority from us? So there’ll be pushback on this, but if they pass the SAVE Act, it’s not voluntary anymore. It would be mandatory.
A new NBC News poll finds Democrats leading Republicans in the generic House ballot matchup by six points among registered voters, 50 percent to 44 percent. And that matches what the averages of many other polls show. Nate Silver’s average has Democrats leading by 5.4 points—that’s nearly six points. That seems like more than enough to take the House, Norm. Do you expect that to hold?
But it gets back to a fundamental point here, Greg, which is Trump’s standing and the Republican standing has declined dramatically. Now, if you were a normal president with a normal party, you would look at that and say, maybe we should revise our policies to take into account what is really hurting voters.
Sargent: I think they might try something like that. I don’t think they’ll succeed, though, Norm—do you?
Sargent: Well, Republicans, as I’ve said before on here, are acting like they think they’re facing an election. They don’t act that way outwardly, but you can see the signs, the leaks and so forth. So they seem to think they’re facing one.
And now you’ve got Republicans who are desperately trying to figure out a way to convey to voters that they’re focused on costs. You’ve got Trump blowing that up for them. If you’re a Republican—no wonder you’re retiring, right? Like, what do you think they’re thinking right now? What do you think the candid view is inside the Republican conferences right now?
But let’s face it: for all of those abysmal numbers, that core base still is with their cult leader, Donald Trump. And until that really begins to crack, I don’t see the vast majority of House or Senate Republicans—who are privately appalled—speaking up and doing anything about it. What we’re going to see, no doubt, is more retirements, more people who can’t look themselves in the mirror in the morning, or just are too conflicted with what’s going on and just want to get out of there.
There’s reason to think that maybe they won’t get away with some of that stuff. There are maybe other reasons to think they might. What does your gut tell you? What’s your deepest feeling here? Do you think we’re going to have an election, and will Democrats win it?
Sargent: Norm Ornstein, that seems like a good place to end. Always good to talk to you.
Ornstein: Yeah. Sorry, I have to be Debbie Downer.
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