The Dumbest Things the GOP Said About the Voter Suppression SAVE America Act This Week
It’s officially Day 4 of the GOP’s pathetic crusade to keep the SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) alive after they voted to open an eternal debate about it, and naturally, Republicans left and right have spent the week coming up with the dumbest ways to defend the death-bound bill.
The House-passed SAVE America Act—aka Trump’s big voter suppression bill, which he recently said would “guarantee the midterms”—would require Americans to provide proof of their citizenship when registering to vote; send married women or trans people who changed their name back to the DMVs to re-register their ID; and make all voters bring their photo ID to the polls. Even though it’s already unlikely to pass, Trump is currently pressuring the GOP to add even more disagreeable provisions in the bill, including forcing states to provide their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, ending no-excuse mail-in voting, and—unrelated to voting—targeting trans people in sports and blocking gender-affirming care for minors.
Since it doesn’t currently have the 60 votes needed to pass, Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) brought it to a vote for debate. The Senate voted 51-48 to proceed to the bill with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voting no and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) maintaining that he doesn’t agree with the bill, but voted for the debate out of respect to GOP leadership. #Loser.
Which brings us to… now, wherein nearly every GOP lawmaker, it seems, is congregating rank and file in a competition to say the dumbest thing possible about what critics are calling “the most restrictive voting bill” ever. We’ve used a five-star rating, with one star equalling something so mind-numbingly stupid we hate ourselves for even talking about it—and five stars being the dumbest thing possible.
Sen. Rick Scott admits to having intramarital affairs
Rating: ★★★★
Rick Scott: “I’m married to a married woman”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 19, 2026 at 6:48 PM
Speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Thursday, a gaggle of Senate Republicans lauded the SAVE America Act when Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fl.) decided to go heavy in on criticizing Democrats, who have (mostly) been in strong opposition to the bill. The exception so far has been Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), the sole House Dem. who voted the legislation forward in February.
“They want fraud,” Scott said. “They say, ‘Married women, it’s gonna disenfranchise married women. I’m married to a married woman.” Nothing like a GOP lawmaker saying that because they themselves have a wife, it means the rest of the country should be forced to comply with their agenda.
“They can figure this out. So, any Democrat that says that women can’t figure this out, they’re stupid.” Sure, but as a woman, I am smart enough to make a trip to the DMV, and also smart enough to know I don’t want an unnecessary trip to the DMV—and also to know that this is just a voter suppression bill disguised as a, well, voter suppression bill.
For his comments, Scott gets four stars—mostly because the standalone quote leaves a tiny, tiny curiosity gap as to whether he just made the infidelity reveal of the century. Disappointingly, he’s just a different kind of ass.
Sen. Dave McCormick says women get carded… at Labor & Delivery Units
Sen. Dave McCormick: “You have to have ID to have a child” pic.twitter.com/OW1iayb9dL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2026
On Fox News on Tuesday, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Conn.) was trying to emphasize how necessary the SAVE America Act was when he made the wholly untrue claim that you need proper identification to give birth. (You don’t!) “You have to have an ID to get a six pack, you have to have it to give blood, you have to have it to have a child, and you have to have it to get married,” he said. “This is a commonsense thing.”
I shouldn’t be surprised, given this is the same party that believes babies are born in placentas and that Tylenol during pregnancy can cause autism—but we’ve seen time and time again how much the GOP’s lack of “commonsense” can cost women. So here’s the deal: medical providers must treat patients who are in labor regardless of whether they can prove ID; men cannot get pregnant; and no matter what the GOP says, mifepristone is safe.
As dumb as it is, we slap him with one single star as retribution for making anyone confused about any of the above.
Sen. Mike Lee is just glad to have an excuse to not shut up
Rating: ★★
Here’s Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah saying the quiet part out loud: Republicans want the SAVE Act because they can’t win the midterms without cheating.
— Mike Nellis (@mikenellis.bsky.social) March 16, 2026 at 3:12 PM
Few lawmakers love the SAVE America Act as much as Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), and he’s been running full speed with the Senate debate to prove it. After banging on for 90 minutes on the Senate floor on Thursday to a mostly empty upper chamber to tell “Mr. President” how much he supports the SAVE America Act (Trump was not present), Lee tweet-bragged about his efforts afterwards, and somewhere during that, he published over 20 tweets about how much he loves the legislation.
In one of these posts, he openly drooled over the idea of flipping Dems’ odds in the upcoming midterms. Currently, the GOP has a slim hold on its 53-47 Senate and 219-212 trifecta, and replying to a pollster who suggested a blue wave is imminent for the Senate in the upcoming midterms, Lee wrote: “Let’s turn this around—by passing SAVE America.”
So, yeah. a one-star for the democracy-bucking efforts. But he gets a bonus star for another one of his tweets, a haiku-shaped thing (pasted below) whose format alone simply made me giggle.
We must not leave townUntil SAVE America is passed
And DHS is fully funded
Sen. Katie Britt is too dumb to come up with her own original point
Rating: ★★★★★
Katie Britt: “You can’t go to work, you can’t shovel snow in New York City without an ID” pic.twitter.com/2b4wBcGR3S
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 19, 2026
I still don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I think about the Trump administration’s suggested $3 depression meals to stave off rising grocery prices, but that also applies here. While speaking to reporters on Thursday, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) also started listing things you can and can’t do without an ID in the U.S., and blew the competition out of the water with her unoriginal remarks.
“You can’t rent a home, you can’t go to work, you can’t shovel snow in New York City without an ID,” she said. “So I’m pretty sure as we look to try to achieve the American dream…you need an ID.” Needing an ID to shovel snow? News to us!
But don’t worry, New Yorkers, you didn’t break the law. Britt was just parroting (and butchering) a talking point made by Trump in February, when he defended the SAVE America Act by pointing to the Big Apple—and his man-crush Mayor Zohran Mamdani—for requiring photo ID from anyone interested in a job as an emergency snow shoveler in February.
When a Fox News reporter asked Thune about Britt’s claim on Friday by repeating, “You need an ID to shovel snow in New York. That is nuts!” Thune replied, “Yep.” Great! Everyone’s just out here saying whatever they want.
So a stellar five stars for Britt, who takes the entire competition by being ridiculous, unoriginal, and downright dumb, all in one.
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