President Donald Trump suggested Friday he would leverage the future of a prized spy tool of the U.S. national security apparatus to pass a stalled Republican-backed voter identification bill through Congress.
Speaking with reporters on Air Force One, Trump was asked about an effort by Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to leverage talks over the expiration of Section 702 in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to force the passage of the SAVE America Act. Luna first hinted at the idea in a Monday interview with The Hill.
“On FISA, Mr. President, Anna Paul[ina] Luna is pushing to have the SAVE America Act linked to FISA in the FISA Renewal. Are you in favor?” Daily Caller reporter Reagan Reese asked the president.
“I think she’s great, and I’d love to see that,” the president responded. “The SAVE America Act is so important, it’s so good. It’s voter ID, it’s … basics about a Democracy, voter ID, birthplace.”
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The president also said that provisions regarding “transgender mutilization [sic]” of minors and men in women’s sports, among other items, were highlighted in the bill.
“We also have no mail-in ballots other than for the military, et cetera, if you’re sick … if you’re away, if you’re disabled, any of those things, it’s pretty generous, actually,” Trump continued. “But, [there is] tremendous cheating that goes on with the mail-in ballots, so we would have no mail-in ballots except for those various exceptions.”
Trump’s comments come after the Senate passed a short-term extension of FISA’s Section 702, allowing the provision to run until April 30 while giving legislators more time to work out a deal. Talks are being held up by Republican hardliners seeking guardrails for the Section, including warrants and preventing data brokers from selling information to the government.
Despite being targeted with the tool in his first presidential campaign under a now-debunked dossier, the president signaled support Wednesday for a clean extension of the provision. He also suggested he would willingly surrender his rights for the provision to continue.
“I am willing to risk the giving up of my Rights and Privileges as a Citizen for our Great Military and Country! Our Military Patriots desperately need FISA 702, and it is one of the reasons we have had such tremendous SUCCESS on the battlefield,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
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