U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press, ahead of departing the White House for Joint Base Andrews en route to Beijing, China, in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 12, 2026. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump launched into a punishing shouting match with Republican senators on Capitol Hill week, furious that his normally devoted GOP are refusing to pass “The Save America Act”, which requires all voters to present identification and proof of their US citizenship in order to cast their ballots.
iNews reporter Simon Marks said the explosive hour-long lunch was filled with Trump talking over Senate Majority Leader John Thune as he “tore into his own party’s leading figures in Congress, accusing them of betrayal for backing legislation earlier this week that would prevent him from waging further war on Iran.”
The shouting match included a blazing, face-to-face row between Trump and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — who Trump got removed in the GOP primaries. Marks reports Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) telling reporters that Trump was “mad as a murder hornet,” during the fight while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the discussions “spirited.”
But Trump’s fury is coming from a place of fear, said Simon.
“His blind rage on Wednesday reflects his party’s dimming prospects in November, and his own desperate determination to do whatever it takes to bully, bluster and bludgeon his own party into supporting his efforts to rig the election,” said Simon.
While already passed by the House of Representatives, many Republican senators remain unwilling to back the Save Act, which challenged the constitutional rights of the nation’s 50 individual states to run their own elections.
Thune says he has told Trump over and over that the Senate votes aren’t there to pass the bill: “That’s not a conclusion, obviously, he would like to see us draw, but that’s what I have to say,” he told reporters, because Democrats oppose the legislation. Dems say the SAVE Act is a deliberate effort to disenfranchise millions of minority voters by making it harder for them to show up at the polls.
But Republicans have already been engaged in “feverish efforts” to shape elections by shaping who votes, said Simon, having already redrawn congressional maps after an April Supreme Court decision eviscerating the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and giving a loving kiss to undemocratic gerrymandering.
“Across the south, Republicans are now forcing minority voters, who usually back Democrats, into new districts where their voting power will be diluted,” said Simon. “… [and] Trump is making no bones about his determination to only respect the outcome of the midterms if Republicans win. He knows that if the Democrats take control of the House, they will have the power next year to launch impeachment proceedings against him and his top cabinet officials.”