Thune Says ‘Votes Aren’t There’ for Trump-Backed Move to Pass SAVE Act

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on March 10 that he’s counted votes in the upper chamber and concluded there aren’t enough to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act by employing the so-called talking filibuster. “We don’t have the votes either to proceed, get on a talking filibuster, nor to sustain one if we got on it. But that’s just a function of math, and there isn’t anything I can do about that,” Thune told reporters in Washington. Asked if the president understands that, Thune added: “We’ve conveyed that to him, but we’ll continue to make that argument because I think it’s important that everybody understand that this really is about. It’s about the votes, it’s about the math, and I’m—for better or worse—I’m the one who has to be the clear-eyed realist about what we can achieve here.”...