WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Senate Majority Leader John Thune cancel the chamber’s upcoming August break until senators pass a strict proof-of-citizenship voting bill, even as Republicans lack the votes to advance it.
Trump has repeatedly urged Thune to scrap the legislative filibuster, which effectively sets a 60-vote threshold for most legislation in the 100-member Senate, or find another workaround to pass the voting bill, known as the SAVE America Act. But Republicans hold only a 53-47 majority, and Thune has consistently said they don’t have the votes to pass the bill or change the rules to get around the filibuster.
“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER,” Trump wrote on social media.
He later insisted to reporters Monday that he has a good relationship with the Senate majority leader but said Thune has “got to get his job done.”
It's the latest escalation in a monthslong pressure campaign by Trump and others in the GOP base to pass the SAVE Act ahead of the midterms. A small but vocal group of Republican senators has also increasingly pressed Thune to find a way forward.
House Republicans have also attempted to create another path for the legislation through the budget reconciliation process, which would allow grant money associated with voting rules to pass the Senate with a simple majority.
The House last week approved a budget framework that included $10 billion for voting-related changes aligned with the SAVE America Act. But Thune has said Republicans don’t currently have the votes for that approach, either.
The fight threatens to complicate the Senate's final legislative sprint before the August break, when Thune had hoped to focus on a long list of priorities that includes government funding, cryptocurrency legislation and sanctions on Russia. The August break, scheduled to start on Aug. 7, is a pivotal stretch for senators to return home and campaign ahead of the midterm elections.
Several Republican senators are facing competitive races, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Ohio Sen. Jon Husted and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority. Republicans are confronting broader political headwinds as well, including an unpopular war in Iran, surging gas prices and costs that remain high for voters.
Thune has enjoyed broad support from his GOP conference all year as he’s pushed back on Trump’s demands. He previously kept the SAVE Act on the Senate floor for weeks in an effort to build additional support, but was unable to secure the votes needed to advance it.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has led the push for the bill in the Senate, escalated his pressure late last week, warning that how Republicans handle the SAVE America Act “could impact not only the November midterm elections, but also the Senate GOP leadership elections.”
“Leaders must lead. And if they don’t, they’re not leaders,” Lee wrote on social media Friday.
Frustrated by the pressure when he doesn’t have a route to pass the bill, Thune has urged Trump, Lee and others to help him find the votes. Trump on Friday said he'd “certainly be willing” to help call senators.
Asked last week if Trump is frustrated with Thune, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "his patience is running out.” But Trump told reporters on Air Force Once Monday while traveling to an event in Michigan, that he hasn’t “even thought” about potential replacements for Thune.
The late-summer dispute echoes a similar fight before last year’s August recess, when Trump pressed Thune to keep senators in Washington to clear a backlog of his nominees. The Senate ultimately left town without a deal after negotiations with Democrats collapsed.
The SAVE America Act, which stands for Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, would require Americans to prove they are citizens when they register to vote, mostly through a valid U.S. passport or birth certificate. It would also require a valid photo identification before voters can cast ballots, which some states already demand.
Voting experts have said the bill could disenfranchise some 20 million American voters who don’t have birth certificates or other documents readily available.
Trump has made it his legislative priority in 2026, saying it would “guarantee the midterms" and falsely claimed that election cheating is “rampant.” He previously declined to sign any other legislation until it was passed.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, July 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters following a weekly policy luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron urged fire crews to “stay strong” as they battled Monday to bring a monster wildfire under control, warning that the fight will take time but vowing, “We will win this battle together.”
On a visit to a coordination center for the massive firefighting effort in southwest France, Macron heard how the blaze raging since last week has been wildly unpredictable, transforming at times into a self-feeding fire storm as it burned through an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to flee their homes.
“We're facing a completely unprecedented fire,” Macron said, describing the situation as France's worst fire-related crisis since World War II.
He praised firefighting teams who stopped the inferno's progression Monday after successive days of spreading flames. But with woodlands still smoldering, he cautioned that the battle isn’t yet won.
“The weeks ahead will be hard,” he said.
With thousands of firefighters on the ground and rotations of water- and retardant-dropping aircraft, it became a race against time Monday before an expected heat wave that could make fighting flames more difficult. The national weather service forecast temperatures above 35 C (95 F) in the southwest on Tuesday and likely higher on Wednesday.
Regional authorities said the situation overnight to Monday had remained “globally stable” — a change from previous days when officials said flames had crept to within 15 kilometers (10 miles) of the outskirts of Bordeaux, a historic city of 268,000 people, and generated self-feeding firestorms with lightning bolts that ignited more blazes.
No new evacuations were announced Monday. But with France about to enter its peak August tourist season, authorities for the Gironde region around Bordeaux worked to keep vacationers away, banning holiday camps for children and for people with disabilities.
Crews using earth movers tore up strips of forest and scrubland to create barren spaces, intended to stop fires from spreading. Farmers were keeping fire crews supplied with water, transporting it to them in tanks.
Around a dozen countries have provided planes, helicopters, firefighters and other assistance to both France and Spain, which is also fighting unprecedented blazes. All told, fires in the two countries have forced more than 330,000 people to flee.
In Spain, wildfires have burned out of control around Madrid and in the Valencia region. Authorities evacuated 79,000 people and confined 30,000 others to their homes.
In both Spain and France, the exceptional scale of the fires — fueled by heat waves that hit especially hard and early this year, making forests and scrubland tinder-dry — are driving calls for stronger action against climate change.
“What we are experiencing is not a series of isolated incidents. It is the consequence of a climate emergency that is making wildfires even more violent, heat waves more frequent,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.
A fire raging in hilly, rural terrain in Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, scorching 500 square kilometers (193 square miles), the government said. That's five times the size of Barcelona.
“Look at how the valley is burned. Look at the houses, the people," said David Gonzalez, a 48-year-old gardener who used his van to run supplies to firefighters in Ávila.
"We are feeling lot of anger and helplessness. It’s something inhuman,” he said.
Fires have burned 1,530 square kilometers (590 square miles) this year in Spain — six times the area scorched by blazes in the first half of 2025, said Sara Aagesen, the ecology minister.
The minister said that another heat wave forecast from Tuesday — which would be Spain’s fourth so far this year — could ratchet up the fire danger. Spain’s weather agency forecast temperatures above 40 C (104 F).
A wildfire driven by strong winds broke out on Sunday afternoon near Peschici, in Italy’s southern Puglia region, burning pine forest and scrub and forcing the evacuation of about 300 tourists from beaches and campgrounds, authorities said.
The Coast Guard evacuated tourists by sea to nearby Vieste, where authorities opened temporary shelters.
Three Canadair water-bombing planes and fire crews on the ground continued Monday to battle the blaze, which revived memories of devastating wildfires that hit the same coastal area in 2007.
Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Iain Sullivan in El Tiemblo, Spain, and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed.
Firefighters suppress a blaze in a forest as wildfires rage near Le Las, outside Bordeaux, France, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters tackle a blaze as wildfires rage near Le Las, outside Bordeaux, France, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 Dash 8 operated by the French civil defense agency drops fire retardant as wildfires rage near Marcheprime, outside Bordeaux, France, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a wildfire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid, Spain, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
A firefighter gestures next to burning trees as a wildfire rages near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a wildfire near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a wildfire near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A woman caresses her pet dog at an emergency shelter set up in the Bordeaux Exhibition Centre in Bordeaux, France, for those that had to leave their homes outside town due to the raging wildfires, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
A fire engine drives through smoke of a wildfire raging near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
