Republicans split on following Trump’s demands for restrictive voting bill

Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony for the Secure America Act in the White House in Washington DC on 10 June 2026. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Pool/Aaron Schwartz - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony for the Secure America Act in the White House in Washington DC on 10 June 2026. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Pool/Aaron Schwartz - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock Republicans split on following Trump’s demands for restrictive voting bill US president urges congressional Republicans to use budget reconciliation procedure to enact his priorities Donald Trump has demanded that congressional Republicans get to work on a party line measure that would ensure defense spending reaches its highest level in decades and also make a likely fruitless attempt to impose a host of new restrictions on voters nationwide. In a post on Truth Social Wednesday, the president said he was “calling on Republicans in Congress to IMMEDIATELY advance and pass the forthcoming $350 Billion Reconciliation Bill”, which would also include the Save America Act , a rightwing makeover of elections that his allies in Congress have sought to pass for months, without success. “No games, no delays, and no weak compromises! Do this ASAP,” Trump wrote. The president’s request appears set to split Republicans , some of whom have objected to Trump’s demands to use a procedure known as budget reconciliation to enact his priorities without being held up by the Democratic minority’s use of the filibuster in the Senate. Trump’s demand is unlikely to win passage of the Save America Act, which has become a fixation of his rightwing base but has no path to enactment in the Senate. By using budget reconciliation, congressional majorities can circumvent the filibuster and, with a simple majority of senators, pass bills that address spending, revenue and the debt limit. Republicans first used the procedure last year to approve the One Big Beautiful Bill Act , which paid for Trump’s mass deportation campaign and extended an array of tax cuts, while slashing the federal government’s main health insurance and food aid programs for low-income communities. They used it again earlier this week to pass a measure allocating $70bn to the agencies leading the White House’s deportation push through the duration of Trump’s term, after Democrats refused to vote for their funding without a slew of reforms. In April, the White House proposed Congress approve spending of $1.5tn on defense in the 2027 fiscal year, and offset it with cuts elsewhere in the government, many of which are concentrated on social services. The request called for $1.15tn of the bill to be passed through the normal appropriations process, with the rest – $350bn – coming from a reconciliation measure. In his Wednesday post on Truth Social, Trump indicated the latter pot of funding is necessary to pay for a host of new weapons, many of which carry his personal touches. These include the “Gold