“Humiliated!” Republicans’ huge plan BACKFIRES in devastating fashion

This is Democracy Watch. Mark, you and I have spoken at length about the Save America Act, which is something that Donald Trump says will guarantee Republican victories for the next 50 years. We are now at the moment that we have been waiting for, which is Republicans are now trying to get this thing through, but they seem to have hit a pretty damning obstacle.

Can you explain what just happened in the Senate?

Yeah, this whole thing seems very humiliating for the Republicans. I mean, they were going to put on some great show where they were going to force the Democrats to filibuster the SAVE Act and, you know, we were all supposed to be quaking in our boots. Has anyone even heard from these guys? No, they're in the Senate doing all the talking. I mean, Mike Lee, every 10 minutes. A filibuster is when you make the other side hold the floor and talk. That's not what the Republicans are doing. They're just doing all the talking because they are afraid, Brian, that if they actually had to bring to a vote this bill,

it would fail. And it would sure as hell fail if they had to bring it forward with the amendments that have been offered by Senator Schmidt that give Donald Trump what he wants, which bans mail-in voting. So John Thune right now makes Mike Johnson look like a giant with a steel backbone. I mean, John Thune is like curled up in the fetal position in a corner of his office someplace being like, please let me out of this. I don't know what to do. I've got Mike Lee talking.

The Democrats are all sort of sitting around. My caucus is furious at me because they just, you know, missed time off from being back in their in their states. And I don't have an endgame. I don't have any way to land this plane because guess what? I don't have the votes to pass the SAVE Act. I definitely don't have the votes to pass it with Donald Trump's crazy amendments. But if I just say, guys, this is done, then

I'm going to get attacked by Donald Trump and his cronies.

So talk to me about the difference between what it would mean to actually nuke the filibuster, which is their option to get this thing passed with a simple majority versus what the Republicans are actually doing right now, which is what they're trying to frame as like this quasi filibuster kind of reversed.

Yeah, it's not a filibuster at all. So let's just start with the proposition that a filibuster is when someone opposing a bill holds the floor and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks with the goal that the people who favor the bill will want to go home or move on or go to sleep or whatever, and they'll give up, right? So that's what a filibuster is.

A filibuster is you're holding the floor to prevent some floor action from taking place. Now, Republicans have talked about two different scenarios leading up to this past week. The first was that they would force a filibuster and then vote to essentially do away with the filibuster, right? They would, by 50 votes or 51, 50 votes plus the vice president, change the rule of the Senate to essentially change the rules so there wouldn't be a filibuster. So that's, that's sort of plan one.

And Mike Johnson has been making clear to anyone and everyone who will listen at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and elsewhere that there are not the votes in the U.S. Senate to do that. So that led Mike Lee and the geniuses in the Republican hardline caucus to say, well, what we at least ought to do is a talking filibuster, which is, all right, maybe we can't do away with the filibuster, but we should make the democrats hold the floor for a prolonged period of time

And if they give up then we call the question, right? So so essentially what they're saying is look it shouldn't be enough that the democrats just say that they'll hold the floor We should make them hold the floor now. There are a lot of reasons why that was not attractive to John Thune. Basically, Democrats could, first of all, hold the floor for a really long time because they could each take turns and then they get to speak again. But also, they could make Republicans vote on really unpopular things. So, lots of reasons why John Thune thought that was a bad idea. But what has happened is just an utter defeat and humiliation for the Republicans, which is they're not making the Democrats hold the floor at all.

Mike Lee is holding the floor. Eric Schmidt is holding the floor. All of these Republicans are holding the floor. What, I guess, to filibuster their own bill, Brian? Yeah. This isn't a filibuster at all.

So really there's nothing actually, there's nothing that the Democrats have to do here other than just listen to Republicans try to sell a bill that at the end of the day is doomed because there aren't enough votes in the Senate, they're not actually willing to nuke the filibuster,

and even if they were, Donald Trump is offering so many poison pills that it makes it impossible for even his own conference to sign onto this thing.

All right, this is the point. Like, I think in the end, Mike Johnson's got to figure out how to land this plane. And it's not going to be easy because it is quite possible that if he put this up for a vote, it would go down on a 50 vote threshold. In other words, there may not be 50 votes in the Senate for what it is that Donald Trump wants.

In fact, I strongly suspect there are not 50 votes, which is why, as we record this, Donald Trump's amendments, they've been offered, they haven't been voted on. And I think that's because if you're John Thune, what do you do, right? You've got a president who thinks that they should pass with 60 votes.

You've got actual senators who don't want to vote for it at all. And so as a result, it is the Republicans who are just making a laughing stock full of themselves, talking endlessly to themselves, you know, and maybe a handful of their supporters.

Yeah.

While the rest of the Republicans in the Senate are like being like, what the fuck are we here for?

Right. Well, it's looming above all of this, of course, is the threat that Donald Trump himself made, which is that even absent legislative action, he's gonna find a way to usher this stuff through. So I want to talk to you about, about the possibility or the likelihood of some executive

order. But before we do that, I just want to note that the best coverage online of all things, save act, save America act voting rights legislation is happening at democracy docket, which is the news outlet Mark founded to focus on everything voting and elections. If you at all care about any of this stuff, democracy, voting rights, anything in this whole realm, legal news, please make sure that you're subscribed to Democracy Docket. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of

this video. That way it'll help support Mark's work, not just in the courts, but also in the media space where we need to elevate his voice. So again, that link is right here on the screen and also in the post description. So Mark, as I was asking before, this idea that Donald Trump, absent any legislative action, will still be able to get this stuff done.

Yeah. So look, Donald Trump is going to try, but I think this whole SAVE Act thing has set him back by a lot. You know, it would have been one thing if Donald Trump had just said, look, you know, Congress is not going to pass the SAVE Act and I'm going to act and I'm going to violate the Constitution. I'm going to violate my oath of office. He would have issued an executive order. My law firm and I would have gone to court.

We would have sued them. We would have won. Just like we sued and won last time. He issued an unconstitutional executive order on voting. And that would have been like fine. Instead, he raised the stakes up and up and up and said, you know, I'm not going to support any senator who doesn't vote for it. I think he had one point said he was going to hold up

all legislation until this bill was passed. So now he looks like a paper tiger. Now Donald Trump looks like a clownish fool that can't even control his own Senate members. And so who's afraid of Donald Trump? I don't know, not me, not you.

No one out there watching that should be afraid of Donald Trump. And his executive order, he'll issue it, it'll get struck down, we'll move on.

So this is not the kind of thing if he does issue an executive order where he issues it, it takes effect only until and unless it's struck down by the courts. This is the kind of thing that for it to take effect, it would have to be upheld, affirmatively upheld by a court.

Well, look, I mean, I do worry that there will be Republican states that will use even the thinnest fig leaf of an excuse to say that they have to follow his executive order or his wishes. And so my message to them is if you do that,

you're going to get sued and you're going to lose. OK, like that's just like a simple message. You know, Ron DeSantis, if you're watching this, you promised me you were going to sign your own mini SAVE Act. You know, you talked a big game. I told you we were going to sue you the moment you signed it. And now where are we? Where are we, Ronnie? No SAVE Act in Florida. Anyway, there are going to be Republican governors that are going to talk a tough game, and they'll get sued, and they'll lose.

But the bigger fight here, the bigger story is just how foolish the Republicans wound up looking on what was the big issue. Remember, this was the thing that Donald Trump wanted to have the fight over in the first quarter of an election year. You know, he made it a centerpiece

of his State of the Union. He has posted on social media about it. He's issued press conference after press conference about it. And here he is looking like a powerless fool, while Mike Lee, I don't know if you saw this, and I don't know if you have the clip,

but Mike Lee went on Maria Bartiromo. Yeah, let's talk about the easiest interview in the world, right? I mean, like, it's Lee, he might as well just be interviewing himself. And he got stumped by Maria Bartiromo on, hey, how many people committed voter fraud in 2020 and 2024 and this is what we got from it. Senator, how big of an issue do you think this really is in terms of secure elections?

For example, how many people do you estimate voted in 2020 and in 2024 that were not legal?

I don't know those numbers, but what I do believe is that there are at least tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands by the time all the research is done of people who have registered to vote in elections in one state or another. And regardless of how many of those have voted in the past, we have to remember that there are 30 million plus noncitizens in this country, 10 or 15 million of whom came into this country illegally between 2021 and 2024 alone. So regardless of how many may have voted in the past,

what you have to look for is how many have registered and how many could register if we don't close this gap. Because Maria, all you have to do right now, if you're a non-citizen, legal or not legal, go into a DMV in almost any state, fill out a driver's license application form, and then check a box and sign your name saying that you are certified to, you are legally allowed to vote in the United States.

And all of a sudden you were a registered voter. So that's Mike Lee being like, well, I don't really know how many it was in 2020 or 2024. By the way, that's not gonna make Trump happy, right? Because Trump thinks he knows. And the reason why Michael Lee says no is because he knows that it's such a vanishingly small number that'll make him look even more pathetic

than he already looks.

Well, the reality is, and you and I have spoken about this, but I think for posterity, it's worth bringing up here. I mean, there have been studies of ballot fraud in this country. There was one study that lasted 14 years, looked at over a billion ballots cast, and they found 31 instances of ballot fraud.

And you know, you also, can you talk a little bit about the study that you talked about on Democracy Docket in Utah?

Yeah, right. Like Utah, so Democracy Docket covered this extensively and thanks for telling people to subscribe and I hope you do. And I also hope you subscribe to this channel because Brian and I have a lot of content coming up that's really going to be valuable to you as we head towards the midterm elections. So Utah did this big study of, you know, trying to find non-citizen voting, exactly the stuff that Mike Lee is talking about. He's, by the way, a senator from Utah, so he should be familiar with this study,

although he didn't obviously cite it to Maria Bartiromo. When they went looking, they found exactly one non-citizen registered to vote, but Brian, that person didn't actually vote. So after studying all of these records, one person registered who wasn't supposed to be, who

then didn't vote. That's what Mike Lee is holding up the Senate for. That's what Donald Trump is claiming he's going to prevent him from signing any other legislation. It's all a bunch of bullshit, an excuse and a permission structure for them to try to steal the 2026 election by suppressing your vote, making it harder for you to vote

and easier for them to cheat.

Don't fall for it.

Last question here on that exact point. You know, people are going to listen to this and say, well, look, these people have the levers of government at their disposal. Trump obviously has a perfectly compliant Republican Party who is often willing to twist themselves into pretzels and blind deference to him. These people aren't

reliant on any facts. So you can go and say, you know, look at what happened in Utah. They did a full study, a full forensic analysis on what non-citizens were registered to vote. They found all of one who never even voted. It's not going to matter because they will still say, well, you know, Joe Biden let in millions of illegal immigrants. And so all of those people are likely voters now. And you can't really know until we take a look at all the ballots and you've got Tulsi Gabbard going down to Fulton County and taking ballots herself that nobody knows what's going on with. And so what is your message to folks who, who see this and kind of have a

sense of despair at this idea that when Trump says he's going get the SAVE Act passed and it's gonna mean that Republicans aren't gonna lose an election again for 50 years, that they believe him.

Yeah, look, we can't give up hope and we can't give into cynicism and despair. That's what Donald Trump wants. He wants you to think that he's all powerful and there's nothing we can do to fight back. The fact is what Republicans have been doing It's just a joke and it reveals how pathetically weak they actually are

Donald Trump is you know pacing the halls of the White House at night talking to the paintings of dead presidents Yeah, and firing off, you know social media posts in all directions many of which are quite dangerous to world security and The economics and the well-being of this country, but on the issue of voting he's consistent He wants to find a way to cheat when they lose the control of the midterms. He knows they're going to lose the House.

He thinks they may lose the Senate. And so they're setting up a structure. I'm actually celebrating what we've just been watching with the SAVE Act because it was such a fiasco. It was such an absolute defeat of Donald Trump and a pathetic display by his supporters, that it's got me

ginned up and fired up and ready to go. So I'm, you know, I said to Ron DeSantis, you know, let me know when you're signing it and I'll be right up here with Brian again talking about another lawsuit.

Awesome. Well, we will take the optimism where we can get it. And again, for those who are watching right now to support the invaluable work that Mark is doing, not just in the media space, which is desperately needed, even as more legacy media outlets continue to capitulate to this administration, but in the courts, ground zero, where all of this stuff is happening. Mark is litigating nearly a hundred cases across the country right now, including roughly

forty cases where the only thing standing between your personal data, the voter rolls being sent to the federal government, being sent to Trump Trump is his law firm. So again, a small step that we can all take to show some support for the work that they're doing and to elevate his voice in the media ecosystem where it's desperately needed is to sign up for Democracy Docket. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video.

If you're not yet signed up, don't leave this video until you hit that link and sign up. If you're not yet signed up, don't leave this video until you hit that link and sign up. I'm Brian Teller Cohen.