Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman broke with Democratic Party leadership this week, signaling his support for voter identification laws, saying he does not view showing ID to vote as unreasonable.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and almost all Senate Democrats have turned down the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. This bill, which would protect the integrity of elections, passed the House earlier this week.

Schumer has called the bill “Jim Crow 2.0” because he thinks it would keep people from voting instead of making elections safer. But Fetterman, who has repeatedly disagreed with his party’s messages and positions, pushed back against Schumer’s framing of the bill.

“I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy. But that’s part of the debate that we were having here in the Senate right now. And I don’t call people names or imply that it’s something gross about the terrible history of Jim Crow,” Fetterman told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany.

The bill would require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, require proof of citizenship in person when registering to vote, and mandate states remove non-citizens from voter rolls.

However, momentum is building among Republicans.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, became the 50th member of the conference to back the legislation. But Senate Democrats have all but guaranteed its demise in the upper chamber, via the filibuster.

Fetterman would not say whether he supports the bill outright. However, he noted that “84% of Americans have no problem with presenting IDs to vote.”

“So it’s not like a radical idea,” Fetterman said. “It’s not something — and there already are many states that show basic IDs. So that’s where we are in the Senate.”

Even if Fetterman votes for the bill on the floor, it probably won’t pass unless there are bigger changes to the way things are done.

Right now, there aren’t enough votes to get past the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster limit.

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Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, are pressing for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship—such as a birth certificate or passport—to register to vote in federal elections.

Trump has called on Senate Republicans to resurrect the “standing filibuster,” an older, more grueling procedure that forces senators to physically speak on the floor to block legislation, rather than rely on the modern “silent” version that stalls bills without debate.

“America’s elections are rigged, stolen, and a laughingstock all over the world,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a country any longer.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the GOP is weighing whether to adopt the tactic, but emphasized that no final decision has been made.

Thune said such a procedural change would demand significant time on the Senate floor, limiting bandwidth for other priorities such as the farm bill, artificial intelligence legislation, and infrastructure funding.

Fetterman also linked the debate over election integrity to the ongoing fight over border enforcement, saying he wants to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security remains funded and focused on deporting criminal aliens.

“Hopefully we don’t have to pay the TSA people and everyone securing our border and focus on deporting those kinds of criminals wherever they are,” he said. “I never want to vote to shut our government down again.”

Although Fetterman reiterated that he does not support the SAVE Act itself, his acknowledgment that voter ID is reasonable marks a significant cultural shift within the Democratic Party.

Polls show the issue enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support.

A 2025 Quantus Insights survey found that 74 percent of Americans—including 61 percent of Democrats—support requiring photo identification to vote.

President Trump has maintained that securing elections through voter ID, proof of citizenship, and transparent counting procedures is essential to restoring confidence in the system. “Elections should be simple, secure, and transparent,” he said recently. “That vision doesn’t threaten democracy—it protects it.”

Acting AG Blanche Fires Back at Obama’s DOJ Criticism

Posted July 21, 2026

Former President Barack Obama sharply criticized the Trump administration this week over what he described as growing political influence inside the United States Department of Justice, prompting an aggressive response from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defending both the administration’s prosecutions and President Donald Trump’s authority over the executive branch.

The escalating public dispute comes as the Justice Department faces mounting scrutiny over a series of criminal investigations and indictments involving several longtime Trump critics and political adversaries, including former FBI Director James Comey.

Obama raised the issue during an interview with Stephen Colbert on CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that aired Monday night.

“The White House shouldn’t be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever,” Obama said during the interview. “The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer. It’s not the president’s consigliere.”

Obama suggested the principle of DOJ independence may ultimately need to be codified into law by Congress, arguing that the justice system risks becoming politicized if presidents are perceived as directly targeting political opponents through federal prosecutions.

The comments immediately triggered pushback from the Trump administration.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson accused Obama of hypocrisy, arguing that his administration played a central role in the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

“Barack Hussein Obama is the king of weaponization,” Jackson said in a statement, referencing declassified documents related to the FBI’s Russia probe.

But the administration’s most extensive response came Wednesday from Blanche during an interview with CBS News in Phoenix.

Blanche forcefully rejected accusations that the DOJ is engaged in political retaliation and defended the president’s constitutional authority over the executive branch.

“Article Two says, ‘the executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States of America,’” Blanche said while holding a pocket copy of the Constitution during the interview. “It does not say that the Attorney General stands off to the side.”

Blanche emphasized that the attorney general serves within the executive branch and argued that presidents are fully entitled to direct priorities involving law enforcement, immigration, drugs, and national security.

“To the extent that President Trump calls me and says that he thinks we have a problem in this country, whether it’s the scourge of drugs, illegal immigration, every American wants him to do that,” Blanche said. “And he should.”

The acting attorney general also dismissed accusations that the DOJ is pursuing politically motivated cases against Trump critics.

“We are absolutely doing nothing but what we should be doing at the Department of Justice,” Blanche said. “I wake up with a very clean conscience every morning.”

The public clash comes amid multiple high-profile investigations involving Trump adversaries.

Most notably, Comey was recently indicted after prosecutors alleged a 2025 Instagram post featuring seashells arranged to form the numbers “86 47” constituted a threat against Trump, the 47th president. Prosecutors argue “86” is commonly understood slang meaning “to eliminate” or “get rid of.”

Blanche defended the case, arguing threats against the president must be treated seriously given recent assassination attempts and escalating political extremism.

Last year, Trump publicly urged then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue prosecutions against Comey, James, and Sen. Adam Schiff, writing on social media that “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED.”

Blanche declined to discuss private conversations with Trump when asked whether the president personally directed prosecutions.

“But rest assured,” Blanche said, “he has much better, bigger and important things to do than to worry about me doing my job.”

Blanche also turned Democrats’ criticism back against them by pointing to the multiple criminal prosecutions Trump himself faced before returning to office, including cases brought by state prosecutors in New York and Georgia as well as federal investigations overseen by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

“So I welcome criticism. Let’s go,” Blanche said. “But if you’re sitting in a glass house, you ought not throw stones.”