Republicans Devise Bonkers Plan to Ram SAVE Act Through Congress

Republican Senate leaders are attempting to use the budget reconciliation process to force their warmongering and President Trump’s SAVE Act through Congress without any Democratic votes.

“The purpose of the second reconciliation bill is to make sure there is adequate funding to secure our homeland and to support our men and women in the military who are fighting so bravely. More funding will mean they can complete the task assigned and keep America safe—which is money well spent,” Senator Lindsey Graham wrote on X Wednesday morning, referring to the lengthy process in which only 51 votes are needed to pass budget-related legislation. “During President Trump’s second term, the murder rate marked the largest single-year drop in recorded history and illegal border crossings are at the lowest level since the 1970’s. Imagine what will happen when we fully invest in President Trump’s public safety mission. I also think we have many opportunities to improve voter integrity through reconciliation.”

However, many on the right do not agree that reconciliation is a viable way to pass the SAVE Act, which would institute extreme voter ID requirements only months before the midterm elections.

“It’s hard to imagine how the SAVE America Act could be passed through reconciliation,” Senator Mike Lee, a co-sponsor of the SAVE Act, wrote on X Tuesday. “And by ‘hard’ I mean ‘essentially impossible.’

“It can’t pass through budget reconciliation because it’s a policy, it is not budgetary,” Lee continued in a video post Tuesday evening. “Do not be fooled into thinking that we can set down the SAVE Act and just pick it up on budget reconciliation. That’s not going to work.”

Lee is not alone among Republicans in Congress, and other members don’t see the SAVE Act passing through the reconciliation process. Leading Democrats confirmed as such Wednesday on the Senate floor.

“If you want to shove the SAVE Act into reconciliation, then have at it. We’re going to fight you tooth and nail throughout the reconciliation process, every step of the way,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “You’re going to find it very difficult to jam massive changes to the American election system ... by using a process that was never designed for that purpose.”

Graham also faces criticism for the legislation’s hawkish priorities.

“Just to recap—we couldn’t have a second budget reconciliation bill focused on family affordability because it would cost too much and prove too difficult to get across the finish line,” Patrick T. Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy Center wrote on X Wednesday. “But we *can* have one so long as it focuses on spending $200b on a war we elected to start.”

Amid a rising number of unlawful kidnappings and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, New Jersey has banned all law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from wearing masks.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed a bill Wednesday that prevents officers from concealing their identity while engaging with the public in any official capacity. It also requires agents to identify themselves before making an arrest. (It includes exceptions for officers working undercover.)

It was one of three pieces of legislation signed by Sherrill to protect immigrant rights across the state and push back against Trump’s unlawful immigration agenda, a promise she campaigned on before taking office in January. A nearly identical bill was vetoed by former Governor Bill Murphy in his final day of office.

“As we’ve seen across the country, Donald Trump’s untrained, unaccountable, masked ICE agents are putting people in danger,” Sherrill said in a statement. “That’s why in New Jersey, we are protecting our communities—strengthening our protections, banning ICE agents from wearing masks, and protecting residents’ privacy from federal overreach.”

The bill comes as ICE ramps up violence, kidnappings, and deportations across the country. Following Trump’s orders, federal officers have mostly recently taken to arresting people at airports without identifying themselves, plummeting public approval of the agency to an all-time low. Recent polling from YouGov shows that a record-high 50 percent of Americans either somewhat or strongly support abolishing ICE entirely.

The Trump administration has been harshly critical of mask bans, claiming without justification that they are unconstitutional. In February, a federal judge blocked a similar law passed in California that prevents federal agents from wearing masks.

But Sherrill offers a rare glimmer of hope for those in the Garden State, which is home to one of the highest immigrant populations in the U.S. Along with the mask ban, the Democratic governor also passed legislation that bars health care facilities from requesting a person’s confidential information like their address and immigration status, as well as a bill that limits when local and state law enforcement have to comply with federal immigration enforcement.

“I can’t believe we have to say this, but in the United States of America, we’re not going to tolerate masked, roving militias pretending to be well-trained law enforcement agents,” she said at a bill-signing ceremony Wednesday.

Prominent Republicans are bristling at the Trump administration’s opaque Iran war plans, particularly after a closed-door briefing of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Wednesday.

Alabama Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chair of the House committee, told reporters after the briefing that the Pentagon wasn’t providing sufficient information about its aims in the Middle East.

“We want to know more about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered,” Rogers said. “We’re just not getting enough on those questions.”

Rogers added that the Pentagon did not answer general questions about the additional 3,000 troops and over 2,000 Marines that the administration is sending to Iran. There are already roughly 50,000 U.S. troops in the area, despite Trump telling reporters last week that he’s “not putting troops anywhere.”

“We just wanted them to tell us what’s the plan, and we didn’t get any answers,” Rogers said. “I understand they can’t give us—they shouldn’t give us—specific operational details. But generally, we should be able to get more texture than we’re receiving from them.… This is a consistent pattern of tagging the base and saying, ‘We came over and briefed you.’ But they’re not telling us things, substantive things.”

Politico’s Connor O’Brien asked the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Roger Wicker, what he thought of Rogers’s remarks.

“Let me put it this way, I can see why he might have said that,” Wicker replied.

But the always-vocal Nancy Mace was the most furious Republican after the briefing. Mace wrote a number of posts on X criticizing both the war and the government’s unclear objectives.

“Just walked out of a House Armed Services briefing on Iran,” read one post. “Let me repeat: I will not support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after this briefing.”

Another of Mace’s posts elaborated: “The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee. This gap is deeply troubling. The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people.”

The comments are a welcome turn against an illegal, unpopular war. But let’s not forget that all three lawmakers were supportive of Trump’s decision to strike Iran in February.

“History will record this night,” Mace wrote after the first U.S. missiles fell. “America and Israel did not flinch and did not negotiate with darkness.”

The next time White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wants to double down on one of Donald Trump’s dubious claims, she should really consult a dictionary first.

During a press briefing Wednesday, Leavitt was asked about Trump’s comments the day before when he claimed that regime change had been achieved in Iran.

“I mean, has it not?” Leavitt replied, smirking. “Their entire leadership has been killed. And nobody has really seen, or legitimately heard from this alleged new leader. So, wouldn’t you say there has been a change in the regime?”

“There has been a change in the leadership,” the reporter replied.

“There’s been a change in the regime leadership, which is what the president said. So, thank you for confirming he was right,” Leavitt said.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton—and everyone else with a high school education—disagree with that assessment.

“The faces may change, but the ideology remains the same,” Bolton told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday. “The regime will change when the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard are gone, and we’re not at that point yet, quite obviously. But it’s another way for him to say that we have won the objective and therefore are victorious and can leave.”

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has only consolidated power after the U.S. and Israel launched a series of brutal airstrikes that killed members of the Iranian regime, The Washington Post reported last week.

After Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed earlier this month, his son Mojtaba Khamenei, a hard-line cleric, was tapped to replace him. Trump has claimed that Khamenei is not an acceptable replacement, but admitted he would be open to working with another religious leader. His own remarks revealed what was already clear: that his administration has no plan for a postwar Iran.

President Trump claimed on Wednesday that “the public is loving ICE.” In reality, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s approval ratings are actually the lowest they’ve ever been.

“I am so proud of our ICE Patriots! They were unfairly maligned by the Lunatic Democrats for years, and now, at the Airports, in addition to what they are supposed to be doing, they are helping people with bags, even picking up and cleaning areas. They are so proud to be there!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The Public is loving ICE, so the Democrats, unwittingly, did us a favor—They are Great American Patriots, they just happen to have much larger, and harder, muscles than most—which is what they’re supposed to have.”

The public is not loving ICE. Recent polling from YouGov shows that a record-high 50 percent of Americans either somewhat or strongly support abolishing the agency entirely.

Opposition to abolishing ICE is now at its lowest levels ever, dropping from 45 to 39 percent since January. The majority of Americans still think of masked men banging down doors and killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti in the street when they think of ICE.

It’s also hard to ignore this strange comment on “larger” and “harder” muscles, something that is clearly more fantasy for Trump than reality.

“Great. Ok @realDonaldTrump, I’m game. Let’s make the November election a referendum on this issue, and ONLY this issue—If you love ICE and love what ICE is doing, vote Republican,” wrote “Never Trump” Republican and former Representative Joe Walsh on X. “If you don’t love ICE and don’t love what ICE is doing, vote Democrat. Simple. I like our odds …”

In a landmark ruling that could affect thousands of future cases, Google and Meta were found liable Wednesday for inducing depression and anxiety in a woman who obsessively used social media as a child. It was the first jury trial in which tech companies were sued over the addictive nature of their social media apps. Google and Meta own the apps YouTube and Instagram, respectively.

The California jury ruled that the companies should award the woman a total of $3 million in damages, with Meta paying 70 percent of the fee.

The plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified as Kaley, said she began using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 11. Her lawyers contended that the social media apps were intentionally addicting, and that both companies knew they were creating mental health issues in children. They presented an internal memo from Meta that detailed how 11-year-olds were four times more likely to use Instagram than rival apps. This contradicts Instagram’s own terms, which require users to be at least 13.

Lawyers for Google and Meta argued that their apps were being unfairly blamed for broader mental health problems in adolescents. Both companies are expected to appeal the decision.

The owners of Snapchat and TikTok, two more popular social media apps, reached pretrial settlements with the plaintiff back in January.

The ruling will likely impact roughly 2,000 ongoing lawsuits against social media companies. The suits, filed by parents and school districts around the country, similarly allege that the tech behemoths should be punished for getting children addicted to their services.

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump has been facilitating shipments of oil to private businesses in Cuba while cutting off government-run institutions for months.

Since capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, the United States has barred Cuba from receiving any Venezuelan oil and threatened any countries that export oil to the island country. But since early February, the U.S. has exported 30,000 barrels of oil to Cuba’s small but important private sector, Reuters reported Wednesday.

This means that while private businesses, like foreign-owned hotels, will receive a boon amid the ongoing blockade, state-run entities will suffer. Speaking to NBC News’s Meet the Press Sunday, Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío called Trump’s fuel policy an “energy asphyxiation,” and claimed it had already caused mass disruptions to Cuba’s health care system.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this is all part of the plan. The policy was “entirely designed to put the private sector and individual private Cubans—not affiliated with the government, not affiliated with the military—in a privileged position.”

In February, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security released guidance that authorized the export of gas to eligible Cuban businesses, specifying that the fuel was not available for resale. Fuel soon began to trickle into private companies that were initially crippled by the U.S. blockade, three Cuban businesspeople told Reuters.

Cuba has historically required 100,000 barrels of oil per day to fuel cars, planes, and power plants. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel announced last week the country had not received any ​fuel in three months. The Trump administration is reportedly pressing Diaz-Canel to step down as part of the president’s so-called “friendly takeover” of the island. Cuba has already outlined some changes it plans to make to open up the island’s economy to the U.S.

In 2026, 61 ships carrying goods imported by private companies arrived in Cuba, including fuel. While overall arrivals are down, there has been an increase in shipments originating from a key energy corridor on America’s Gulf Coast, according to vessel tracking data from LSEG Data & Analytics analyzed by Reuters.

In a failed attempt to prevent voter fraud, a Wisconsin man was convicted of … voter fraud.

Harry Wait, a 71-year-old MAGA loyalist, was found guilty of election fraud and identity theft in Racine County, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. In 2022, he admitted to unlawfully requesting the ballots of Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Democratic Racine Mayor Cory Mason, which he claims proves how easy it is to commit voter fraud.

He was charged with two misdemeanor election fraud charges and one felony identity theft charge.

The retired consultant is the leader of H.O.T Government, a Wisconsin group that aims “to hold public officials and institutions accountable to the people they serve.” The group claims both Wisconsin and federal elections are riddled with fraud, and it unwaveringly maintains that President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Trump lost Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes.

Wait has spent years mobilizing against Wisconsin’s state website that allows voters to order mail-in ballots, the same one he used to feign the identities of Vos and Mason.

His conviction comes as Trump and the GOP desperately try to pass the SAVE Act, a bill that would supposedly prevent voter fraud (which is exceedingly rare), but in reality would disenfranchise millions of marginalized voters.

“It’s not about me. It’s about the republic,” Wait said during the trial. His actions have garnered praise among Republicans. At rallies, supporters across Wisconsin have worn “Free Harry Wait” T-shirts, and in 2022, Senator Ron Johnson called Wait a “white hat hacker.”

“I would do it again,” Wait told WTMJ following the verdict.

When Texas Representative Pete Sessions went on C-SPAN to take questions from everyday Americans on Wednesday morning, he was probably expecting something a bit more polite than what he got.

Instead, the Republican lawmaker received a call from “Jack, in Silver Spring, Maryland,” who chose not to mince words:

“Your party has given the power of the presidency to an insane, pedophilic serial killer. You’re evil, and this—”

Jack was then cut off by the C-SPAN moderator.

Amusingly, Sessions did not dispute the claim that Donald Trump is “an insane, pedophilic serial killer.” After nodding subtly as he listened to the caller, Sessions instead offered a wishy-washy statement about tolerating those with different opinions.

“I would just say that I am aware, across this country, that there are people who have varying views. I would tell him that I can control myself. And I try to work on a straightforward, honest basis, with a bipartisan mission that I have with Mr. [Democratic Representative Kweisi] Mfume and the duty and responsibility of my job on Oversight. I would like for him to at least offer some credibility to—there are people who are trying to move this nation away from anything that would be a fight to fix.”

Sessions is a boilerplate Republican who has served in Congress for 28 years. He’s perhaps best known for his love of magic—he introduced a bill that would recognize magic “as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure,” which has been stalled in committee for 10 years—and his passion for trading stocks while in office.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was caught lying while trying to explain why President Trump rejected bipartisan plans to reopen the government and get TSA workers paid.

“Mr. Speaker, it seems as if the Republicans and Democrats are talking past one another right now. Is the only person who can solve this the President of the United States, and why isn’t he involved?” Fox News’s Chad Pergram asked Johnson during a Wednesday press conference.

“Well, I think he is involved,” Johnson replied. “I mean, I know he had a group of—”

“He shot down the plan yesterday,” Pergram said.

“Well, that’s what’s been reported, OK,” Johnson replied.

“He said that in the Oval Office that he was not pleased.”

“Well I actually have his exact quote somewhere … to paraphrase him, I think he said that he’s a little skeptical or cynical that a deal’s gonna come together,” Johnson said. “What we’re hearing in our chamber is that there’s discussions going on. Democrats are demanding to break off parts of Homeland [Security] and fund it separately.”

Johnson’s long answer was actually less accurate than the “reporting” he dismissed. Earlier this week, GOP Senator Joe Kennedy stated plainly that they were prepared to work with Democrats to reopen the government by the end of this week, but Trump “said no. No deals with the Democrats.” The president himself doubled down on that, stating that he would be unhappy with virtually “any deal they make.”

That sounds like the president is not involved, and does not want to be—regardless of what Johnson spews. Meanwhile, hundreds of TSA agents continue to go unpaid, and the lines at airports keep getting longer.