The SAVE America Act Standoff

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Thursday, March 19th, 2026. I'm Dave Anthony. The Senate is considering a bill to require proof of citizenship and an ID to vote. But President Trump wants the Save America Act to be more than that. I think Republicans want to use this as an exercise to get Democrats on the record about where they stand on transgender issues and transgender surgery for kids and men and women's sports. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. Recent statistics show crime in the U.S. is declining, but could the positive trend be undercut by those who say they've been a victim of a criminal act? We should really caution against national level explanations, because crime is something that is not experienced in the aggregate. That said, I think the general trend nationwide is that things are getting safer, and that's a good thing. It's news that we should be celebrating. And I'm Joe Concha. I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown.

It's one of the most important and consequential pieces of legislation in the history of Congress. That's what President Trump says about the Save America Act, saying he wants no more rigged elections. So good for our nation. I mean, who would not have voter ID? Who would not have proof of citizenship? And the only people who would want not to have that are people that want to cheat. The bill, Republican Senate leader John Thune is pushing and they start a debate on Tuesday, would require states to get proof of citizenship for people registering to vote and require a photo ID when voting. The president also posted on truth social, only sick, demented, or deranged people would vote against it. But not a single Democrat is in favor. Democrats are always willing to do what we can to move voting rights forward. This moves voting rights way, way back. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It could purge millions of American citizens from the voter rolls. Through a screening algorithm designed by Elon Musk's Doge Squad, it could disenfranchise over 20 million Americans. House Republicans already passed their version called the Save Act. But the president wants to go a little bit further with this. Chad Pergram is Fox News chief congressional correspondent. And you'll notice in his language that every time... He addresses this issue. He will, you know, throw in transgender sports and say, you know, we can't have transgender for everybody. He says we can have men playing women's sports. Well, those things are not in the bill. Even the Save America Act, which is a separate standalone piece of legislation. And so what Republicans are going to try to do is add those in. as amendments. And I press Marsha Blackburn, the Republican senator from Tennessee, about that just the other day. And I said, what does that have to do with voting? And she really didn't have an answer for that. But the main thing is that that's what the president wants. And so most Republicans, at least conservatives and the senator, those who are closely aligned with the president are willing to do his bidding. Okay. So those things would be add-ons and amendments, but that is part of quite a process. Yeah, yeah. The thing for Republicans in all of this is that they need 60 votes to get things done in this piece of legislation, amendments, including the final passage. Is there any chance anything gets a 60 vote threshold? Very slim. And this is where there is some contention between different wings of Republicans in the Senate kind of fighting with each other. You know, I mean, I talked to Cynthia Lummis, the Republican Center from Wyoming, who says there just aren't the votes to pass the bill. Now, you need just a simple majority to pass the bill, but you talk about 60 votes. That's very important because you need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. And what John Thune, the majority leader, has done so far, is allow the Senate to just debate the bill.

There will be some amendments considered, and I think Republicans want to use this as an exercise to get Democrats on the record about where they stand on transgender issues and transgender surgery for kids and men and women's sports. And then, you know, use that against Democrats this fall. They will have documented a roll call of vote is what they will have done, even if those amendments aren't passed. But I've been told by John Thune's office, and I pressed him about this, at some point he is going to terminate debate on this. And that's where he would file in the term of art as cloture. And cloture is what sets up that 60-vote threshold to end debate. And if you don't get that, then guess what? The debate just continues. Now, this is where, Dave, you have some conservatives, Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, some others. They have been very clear saying, well, you know, why don't we just have a long debate? And eventually after several weeks, everybody peters out. And then you don't need to mess with 60 votes because everybody has talked and talked and talked. And there's literally no other opportunity. And we just move the question. We put the question to the Senate is what they do. And you just need 51 votes. Okay. So back up one second. Back up one second on that. I know I've been hearing about this talking filibuster. That, why would Democrats give up at that point? Like, why they wouldn't want this legislation? They don't want this legislation. So why would they allow that to happen? Probably, you're probably not. You're probably, you know, they probably wouldn't give up, frankly. But here's the thing, and this gets very in the weeds, but it's very important. Each senator is allowed to speak twice. Per day, per legislative day, and I'll address that. There's a difference between a legislative day and a calendar day per question. Okay, what is a question in the Senate? That could be the bill. That could be an amendment. That could be a motion. Usually in the Senate at most, you have two amendments in play any one time. So in other words, let's just say you have the bill. You have... two amendments, and maybe you have a motion or two in there. Okay. Well, that conceivably is up to eight speeches per senator, per legislative day. You see what I'm getting at? There's 100 senators. There's 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats. Everybody gets up and let's just say they speak for two hours, and there's no limit on the debate about how much time you can speak. You know, that's probably a week's worth of time at 24-7. All right. So this could, in theory, go on and on and on and on. That's right. And that's where Ted Cruz and everybody says, let's actually have a filibuster, make them filibuster, do it the old-fashioned way Jimmy Stewart and Mr. Smith goes to Washington. There's the scene where he literally collapses on his desk in the movie, the Frank Capra movie from the late 1930s. And, you know, that's it. Well, that's where, you know, what the Democrats would do is they would set up a, you know, squadron of people. You get four hours, you get four hours, you get four hours. Now, I want to come back to that very important point about a legislative day. Okay. This is of crucial importance. You're going to make our eyes glaze over. You realize that. Well, but our people... It's not your fault. I know. It's not your fault. It's just the way this process goes. It just is so frustrating. And I'm explaining why they probably can't get it done. Okay. If the Senate were not to adjourn and were to recess...

There's a difference between at the end of the day adjourning and recess. So here's the thing to watch for, Dave. If they move to adjourn, and even if people like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and Democrats will be on board with this because they want to shorten this up, that they would vote to adjourn. That would be the test vote. That would tell you whether or not there is a snowball's chance and you know where of passing this bill. And that's why John Thune has said, okay, I'm going to let this go for a while. This is going to be a show, maybe around the clock, overnights, maybe the weekend, maybe early next week. But he's looking at two things next week. The Senate is supposed to start its Easter recess at the end of next week. Okay. There are rumblings about maybe trying to get something done on funding DHS, because if they don't get it funded by the end of next week, then it's unfunded again for another month. And we have long air, and the airport lines get worse. Right. Uh-huh, over spring break. And then you also have to confirm Markwayne Mullin. So this is where we think that John Thune, and I've been told this by his office, will move to terminate debate. You will have that vote at 60 votes. They won't be able to break the filibuster, and then they will probably move on to other things like confirming Mullen or if there's a deal on funding DHS. And that is why, you know, you have some conservatives, Anna Paulina Luna, Republican from Florida in the House of Representatives, who says, well, this is just an all-a-show. You know, you're not serious about this. So this was terrible leadership by John Thune. And that's where some on the hard right are really starting to, you know, lay into John Thune about how he's managing this. I should note, and I reported this on the air on the TV side, it's been very interesting to watch that President Trump has held his tongue in his criticism of John Thune. And that's a contrast compared to what used to happen when he would routinely take on Mitch McConnell. when he was the majority leader and tell him to get rid of the filibuster and everything else. That's not been the case here with John Thor. Okay. So the filibuster itself that allows the 60-vote threshold, there have been a lot of people who've wanted to get rid of that. President Trump has suggested getting rid of that to get this kind of a bill through. Could that happen? John Thune says no, and I'm going to tell you why. You've probably heard this before somewhere. I don't know where. Dave, it's about the math. It's like a signature line. Yes, it is for you. Because you need to get the Senate into a particular parliamentary posture where there is no more debate. Okay. And I won't explain how you can do that. But that's not the hardest thing to do. Okay. And then ask for a re-vote. and bring down the threshold to 51 votes. The Senate has done a version of this on filibusters three times. They lowered the bar for, you know, all non-Supreme Court nominees back in 2013. This was Harry Reid, the majority leader. So that's 51 votes stand to filibuster. So Democrats did that. Right. Democrats. And then Mitch McConnell. And this is the reason that Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are all in the Supreme Court. They lowered the bar then for the Supreme Court.

There was a mini nuke that John Thune executed last year, which was just a slate of nominees together, pretty non-controversial lower tier nominees. And so that was a mini nuke. So they lowered the threshold there. But they have never done it for legislation. This is legislation. There's a difference between legislation and non-President. President Trump believes that this is the most important legislation there is, this voter ID stuff. And that's why I'm watching closely to see what he says to John Thune. Yeah, because if he pushes for that and John Thune doesn't give him that, then what? Well, he can say same thing I did. In fact, John Thune last week used my line. He turned to me in response to my question and said, it's about the math. I don't have the votes to do that. That's the exact quote, Dave. So, yes, it does come down to the votes. So in the end... This, just as you talked about earlier, will give Republicans the ammunition they think they need to try to keep control of at least the Senate in the midterm elections. It's possible. You have to remember what they ran on in 2024 was border issues, and they will point out that these types of issues are very important because this is related to people who, you know, are in the country illegally and are voting. You know, it's been barred in the Constitution. You have to be, you know, a citizen. vote. That's not a news flash. I mean, that's been around forever, so that's not really a, you know, a surprise in that sense. And you know what? There have always been these studies. Credible organizations of voter fraud, and it's infinitesimal. The Brennan Center does an annual vote fraud report here, and it said that the incidents of voter fraud are between point. 0.003 percent and 0.025 percent. But some Republicans don't believe that, Chad. And Columbia University says that, you know, that their study says that it's usually brought up by people who said they lost the race. And then there was a comprehensive study by the Washington Post that found 31 credible instances of voter fraud between 2000 and 2014 out of one billion votes cast. Again, President Trump doesn't believe that. I understand that. So bring us the evidence of that. In the end, with all of this that might last for weeks, you say the math. Probably next week because of the reasons I state. Right. This is going to go to about next week. Your math, you talk about the math. Give me a percentage chance that this bill passes the Senate. President Trump gets to sign it. probably 15 to 20 percent, only because if they were to get, they only need 51 votes to actually pass the bill. But John Thune and others have said there aren't even 51 votes to pass the bill.

So I would have thought you had said zero percent. So there is a shot. Only because, you see, and I said this on the air, there is a universe where you could get a simple majority. Yes. We're not there right now. You know, so I wouldn't say that it's, you know, 0.5 percent or something, but I think it's about 15 to 20 percent. And that might even be a little high, frankly. Chad Pergram, Chief Congressional correspondent over on Capitol Hill. Great to have you on. Thanks for being here. Thank you. It's Will Tane Country. Watch it live at noon Eastern Monday through Thursday at Fox News.com or on the Fox News YouTube channel. And don't miss the show. Listen and follow the podcast five days a week at Fox News Podcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. This is Joe Concha with your Fox News commentary. Coming up. The Council on Criminal Justice examined dozens of cities and found the crime rate was lower across the board in most categories last year. They reported that homicides in 35 cities were collectively down 21% in 2025 compared to the year prior. 9% fewer aggravated assaults, 22% fewer gun assaults, a 23% drop in robberies, and carjackings declined by 43%. Attorney General Pam Bondi highlighted the numbers at a hearing last month. In 2025, we saw the lowest. murder rate in 125 years. That's nothing short of historic. President Trump referenced lower crime rates at his State of the Union in February, but said more still needs to be done. Above all, unleashing America's promise requires keeping our community safe. We have made incredible strides, yet dangerous, repeat offenders continue to be released by pro-crime Democrat politicians again and again. Over the past two years, cities and states have passed new tough on crime laws, or at least tougher. In Colorado, for example, a new law forces criminals to serve 85% of their sentences. The 23rd Judicial District DA, George Brockler, told KDVR in the case of one man sentenced to 20 years in a domestic violence assault. In this case, what that means is instead of this guy being parole eligible at a decade, he will not see the parole board until he served at least 17 years. In the last two years, California's rolled back some sentencing reforms and made repeat theft a felony again. In Arizona, voters approved a rule that says child sex traffickers should get life in prison, and New Hampshire reconsidered certain aspects of their bail reform law. When it comes to something like crime, we should really caution against national level explanations because crime is something that, you know, is not experienced in the aggregate. Rafael Manguel is the Niconell Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor to the City Journal. So talking about it in the aggregate, you know, increases the chances for error. That said, while there are certainly places in the country that have seen crime go up, I think the general trend nationwide is that things are getting safer. And that's a good thing. It's news that we should be celebrating. If you look at the study that the Council on Criminal Justice put out, it's looking at a what's called a convenience sample of cities that has generally been pretty predictive of the broader national trend. So there's no real reason to distrust at least the direction of those numbers. But yeah, I think we'll have a more complete picture once the full national data come out at the end of this year. So, Raphael, let's talk about why. Why might we be seeing drops in crime and reading everything from more money being spent on local crime initiatives to less alcohol consumption? There's a Wall Street Journal article highlighting survey data showing young people are spending more time alone. You study this stuff. Is there a reason why?

I think you have some sort of non-policy related factors and you have some policy-related factors. On the non-policy side, you've mentioned a few of them. I do think it's important that Americans are drinking less. Alcohol is a sort of criminogenic drug. When people get drunk, they do stupid things. They get more violent. They get into more trouble. Americans are frequenting bars and nightclubs at lower rates, and these tend to be places where, you know, fights and assaults and sexual assaults tend to happen. So, you know, that is absolutely going to have an impact in the aggregate. And the fact that more people, particularly young people, are spending more time alone and in the house is also important because it reduces the number of opportunities for victimization. If somebody is at home, they're not on the street, they're less likely to be robbed in their homes. They're less likely to be assaulted. Whereas if they are, you know, walking the streets at 2 a.m. on the way home from a bar or, you know, taking the subway in the middle of the day, they are more vulnerable targets to motivated offenders. And so, you know, I think the broader trend in what criminologists call routine activities has been a shift more toward time at home and time alone, which reduces the number of opportunities that criminals have to convert victimizations. And, you know, What that means is that we have to view the raw numbers that get reported for different crime categories with a little more nuance than we used to, right? If Americans are spending about an hour more a day at home than they used to, well, then, you know, that we're going to have to adjust for that when looking at the number of robberies or the, you know, the number of felony assaults, for example. On the policy side, do you think more money... being put toward any one particular local initiative is working? Are you looking at any one particular city where you think, you know what, this policy or this program might be having an impact? It's hard to say with the sort of investments in programming that I think a lot of people are sort of motivated to point to as explanations for the broader trend. You know, I think part of the reason a lot of people want those programs to be successful and to be the dominant explanation for crime trends is that they're less friendly toward a kind of enforcement-centric approach to crime. But I do think that if you, you know, look at policing trends throughout the country, what you're going to find in a lot of American cities is that police have reasserted themselves. You'll see arrest numbers going up, stop numbers going up. In some places like New York, for example, you'll see pretty significant increases in the jail population. Nationally, we've seen the prison population increase the last couple of years for which we have data, which is a reversal of a decade-long trend in the other direction. So, you know, You consider that alongside the fact that many states and cities have adopted tougher laws with respect to criminal justice. So, you know, places like Tennessee and Florida and Louisiana have adopted initiatives like truth and sentencing and, you know, harsher penalties for repeat offenders in certain categories, all of which I think, you know, is going to have an impact, at least in the aggregate.

That's really interesting because we were having this sort of national conversation, right, for a while about reduced sentences, even changing some felonies into misdemeanors, sort of a more relaxed approach to criminal justice. It sounds like you're saying that maybe is reversing a bit, but my question is, does it have a deterring effect? Do we have any evidence that when you know your local police or... District Attorney are apt to pursue you, is there a deterrent effect on committing crime? Yeah, I do think that there's going to be some deterrent effect, at least for some of these initiatives. There was a great series of videos that came out not too long ago involving alleged shoplifters in Orange County, California who were being caught on camera, discussing how much more frightened they were having been caught in Orange County as opposed to L.A. County where the penalties were not as harsh. So I do think that there are offenders who take those things into consideration. But I'm also looking at the not just the deterrence, but the incapacitation of criminal offenders through these kind of tougher initiatives. So, yeah, you've had a reversal in places like Oregon that decriminalized drugs, for example, and then recriminalized them a couple years later in California, you know, with Prop 47, which was partially reversed by Prop 36. And then, you know, you had real changes in terms of, you know, the makeup of the national prosecutor movement where a lot of so-called Progressive Prosecutors got unseated in the November 2024 election cycle. You had Nathan Hochman in Los Angeles County taking the seat from George Schoen. Up in Oakland, you had Pamela Price be successfully recalled in San Francisco across the bridge. Chesa Boudin was recalled a couple years before that. You know, when you sort of tally everything up and you look at some of the ballot initiatives in places like California and Colorado and Arizona from the last election cycle. you know, consider some of the policy changes being made at the state level in places like Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, I think you can start to see why North Carolina is another one with Arenas Law after the Arena's Ericka murder. Yeah. So there's been a lot of shift rightward on criminal justice policy. And, you know, I don't think that's gotten enough attention. Let's talk about a possible problem with the data after this whole conversation because the Justice Department's latest national crime victimization survey, that was from 2024, indicated that some victimization is actually either steady or maybe even going up. This is reports of victimization. And I'm looking particularly in aggravated and sexual assaults. Is that... noteworthy, should we be cautious in discussing declines in crime if there are still victimizations that are maybe going unreported? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the first thing to say here is that there has always been a gap between crimes that get reported and victimization surveys. So one of the things that we know with respect to the crime data is that the vast majority of crime that is committed in the United States does not. eventually get reported to the police. So that should be the starting point for any analysis of broader crime trends. We do see the gap growing in the short term, and that should be concerning. I think, you know, a lot of people are going to ask why that might be. And again, I would caution against a single explanation, but in some jurisdictions that have really been struggling with police recruitment and retention, you've likely seen an increase in response times. So we've certainly seen that in New York City, in Chicago, and other

parts of the country. And there is research suggesting that, you know, higher response times leads to lower likelihood of a report being successfully made because people will not only, you know, stop waiting around with respect to the incident offense, but they might be less likely to call in the future, particularly with those lower level offenses where they don't necessarily feel confident that something's going to come of making a successful report. The Trump administration has said in part, that some of this decline, and I know we don't like, I know you don't like to pin it on one thing, but they've said some of this may be due to deportations and people leaving. Do you think that's possible or even likely? I absolutely think it's possible, especially if you, you know, accept the administration's characterization of the deportation effort as disproportionately targeting criminal offenders. If you were deporting a significant number of criminal offenders out of the country, well, that is absolutely going to have beneficial effects in terms of overall crime. But there are other federal initiatives that I think also don't get enough credit for at least contributing to some of this decline. And those are the federal Joint Task Force surges in places like Washington, D.C. and Memphis, Tennessee, where you... have seen real sharp declines in local crime rates after those task forces had been launched. You have, you know, a combination of National Guard and U.S. Marshals, ATF, FBI, DEA, and all these other agencies collaborating with local police to make more arrests, to do more enforcement, to have a more visible presence, particularly in problem areas of those cities. That has produced real benefits that seem to have some real staying power. And I think I have absolutely. contributed to the broader crime decline. The only question is how much? We've seen just this year, really ever since the strikes on Iran, a different type of criminal threat, right? The bomb throwing in New York, the Austin shooting, the attack on the Michigan synagogue. Talk to me briefly about the perception of safety, even if numbers, like you say, the aggregate crime doesn't happen in the aggregate, right? Even if these aggregate numbers are lower, one can have a different perception based on the conversation, based on the events of the day. Yeah, I mean, when you're talking about the terrorist threat specifically, I do think that that is going to have a real impact on people's perceptions of how safe they are. More importantly, though, it needs to be a wake-up call to state and local police departments because they have to understand that they are going to be the first responders in these types of lone wolf attacks. We saw that in Austin. We saw that in New York City, right? These individuals are first being confronted by local police. And so departments, particularly in big American cities where, you know, maybe. the targeting likelihood is higher for terrorism, you know, police departments need to start training. They need to start reinvesting in counterterrorism assets and, you know, really putting plans together for mass casualty events. Unfortunately, that's a real risk in the United States today. I think it's probably more pronounced in the wake of the hostilities in the Middle East. And so it's absolutely going to be something that, you know, the public is going to want to see a robust response to in order to feel better about, you know, going about the daily lives without interruption. Rafael Menguel, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal.

So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required, $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes, me slow when network is busy. See terms. Every weekday, it's your go-to source for staying informed and entertained. The Fox News Primetime highlights podcast, the Ingramangle, Jesse Waters' primetime, Sean Hannity, and Gutfeld. Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcasts.com. Subscribe to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. It's time for your Fox News commentary. Joe Concha. What's on your mind? So, is America winning the Iran War? Of course. But that's not what we're hearing from legacy media. Hi, everyone. After. 10 years of talking about this stuff since Donald Trump came onto the political stage, I think we can safely come to one cold and incontrovertible fact that if it's good for Trump and therefore good for the country, legacy media will reflexively be against it. Let's quote Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who told reporters this. Quote, you cheer against Trump so hard it's in your DNA and it's in your blood. You take half truths, spun information, leaked information to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind. Hard to argue with that argument. Let's put it this way. Trump could sign an executive order banning pineapple on pizza, which 95% of you out there, I know it. would probably support such an executive order. And yet, Democrats would come out suddenly and be in favor of pineapple on pizza. And their allies in the press would echo that sentiment as well. Same thing goes for war with an adversary of ours of nearly five decades, even if it means being sympathetic and even propping up the Iranian regime, which by all counts is profoundly evil and evenly recently killed 32,000 people at a minimum in its streets simply for protesting. It's the reflex for the press to greatly exaggerate the negative while applying the bias of omission to the positive. We're now less than three weeks into this war. An American success is something that almost no one could have predicted going in. But if you listen to many in legacy media, you would think we are losing this war right now, and that absolutely is not the case. I'm Joe Concha.

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