White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt strolled into Thursday's briefing armed with a New Jersey voter scandal and a not-so-subtle warning aimed at Senate Majority Leader John Thune. As USA Journal reported, the message from the commander in chief was crystal clear: his patience tank is sitting on empty, and Thune better start filling it up real quick.
So here's the deal. The House already passed its budget resolution on Wednesday with provisions from the SAVE America Act baked right in. Gold star for the House. Meanwhile, the Senate is apparently just vibing, leaving what Leavitt called the most popular election security legislation in a generation collecting dust somewhere between a hallway and someone's inbox. Leavitt put it bluntly: Republicans got elected to lead in the White House, the House, AND the Senate. Two out of three did their homework. One kid is still playing on the swings.
Then New Jersey showed up like a perfectly timed plot twist. Governor Mikie Sherrill suddenly revealed that 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote in her state, and roughly 400 of them actually cast ballots. This bombshell didn't exactly drop out of nowhere. It came right after DHS Secretary Mullin fired off letters to multiple states demanding noncitizen voter registration data, right after Trump's primetime address claimed 270,000 noncitizens were on voter rolls across just four states, and right after the DOJ opened a federal investigation into New Jersey's election rolls.
Coincidence? Leavitt sure doesn't think so. She suggested that the governor's sudden transparency probably had something to do with realizing this administration is actually serious about digging into the issue of noncitizens being registered. Funny how accountability works when someone is actually watching.
But wait, it gets better. Leavitt dropped this gem: the White House suspects 6,600 is just the appetizer, not the full buffet, and not only in New Jersey but potentially across the entire country. Meanwhile, the Garden State is literally fighting federal requests for its voter roll data in court while simultaneously admitting that noncitizens were registered for over a year before anybody noticed. That's like locking your diary while reading it out loud on a megaphone.
Oh, and that software company everyone tried to blame for the registration errors? They basically said, "Don't look at us," and pointed the finger right back at state election officials who manually approved the registrations. So much for the computer glitch excuse.
The DOJ probe, led by Harmeet Dhillon, has given respondents a cozy five business day deadline to cough up answers. Nothing says "we mean business" quite like a countdown clock from federal prosecutors.
So here we are. New Jersey basically handed Trump a gift wrapped argument for why the SAVE America Act needs to happen yesterday. The House checked its box. The evidence is piling up like laundry nobody wants to fold. And John Thune has until the August recess to figure out whether he wants to be the guy who got things done or the guy who got publicly roasted by his own party's president on a weekly basis. Clock's ticking, Senator.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
