Republicans brace for Trump SAVE Act showdown

Sens. Mike Lee and Rick Scott have teed up what could be a tense, confrontational lunch Wednesday with President Trump and Senate Republicans.

The two spent months pressuring Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on the SAVE America Act. Now Trump will be in the room with them.

Why it matters: Trump is fixated on passing the SAVE Act to help Republicans in the midterms. But Thune is insistent that Republicans don't have the votes.

"There are not the votes to nuke the filibuster, and there aren't going to be 10 Democrat votes to all of a sudden support the SAVE America Act," Thune told reporters on Tuesday.

SAVE would require voter ID and proof of citizenship, while imposing new restrictions on mail-in voting.

Zoom in: Scott (R-Fla.) invited Trump to attend the weekly lunch put on by the conservative Senate GOP Steering Committee.

Thune laughed when asked whether Scott checked with him before extending the invite. "Well, he told me he did it," Thune told reporters.

Scott sent a letter to senators Monday outlining what he thinks the chamber's focus should be, including passing the SAVE America Act or parts of it, according to a copy Axios obtained.

Between the lines: Senate GOP leadership has largely learned to negotiate with and work around staunch conservatives like Lee (R-Utah) and Scott. But some senators are losing patience.

"I never speak ill of members when they want to be professional," Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters Tuesday after accusing Lee of "naivete" or wanting "to get more likes on social media posts."

"But when you do some of the bullshit [Lee has] done on social media, that's why he gets these comments out here," he added.

"I think Mike Lee is contributing to this fantasy that somehow it's going to happen," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters.

The big picture: The SAVE Act got 48 votes earlier this month when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tried adding it as an amendment to the budget reconciliation bill.

Former GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Tillis voted against it.

The closest the GOP got was 53 votes for a narrower amendment requiring photo ID to vote. Three other amendments requiring IDs for registering to vote or requiring proof of citizenship failed to get more than 50 votes when they came up in April and June.

"The will is not there, and the votes aren't there. ... I'm into reality," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told Axios when asked about Lee and Scott's efforts.

But Scott and Lee are publicly pushing leadership to use aggressive procedural tactics until the bill passes.

"Let's pass the SAVE America Act now," Lee replied Monday to a post from Thune's X account. "As I've been asking you to do for months, please bring it up now and announce that we will debate it until it passes."

Thune retorted Tuesday: "Sometimes when something hasn't been done in 100 years there's a reason for that."