Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN on Sunday that Democrats will fight “tooth and nail” against the House-passed SAVE America Act, an election integrity bill he likened to racial segregation.
During an appearance on “State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash,” Schumer stressed his caucus will “not let” the legislation reach President Donald Trump’s desk and suggested Republicans only support it because they do not want poor people and minorities to vote. The Trump-backed SAVE America Act would mandate voters to present photo ID at the polls — a requirement surveys show the vast majority of Americans support — as well as proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration.
“About 83% of the American people, including a majority Democrats, support voter ID laws,” host Jake Tapper told Schumer during their exchange. Tapper was referring to an August 2025 Pew Research Center survey which also found that 71% of Democrats and 95% of Republicans support mandating “all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.”
“Well, yes, the voter ID laws that— first, each state can have its own voter ID laws, and some do and some don’t,” Schumer replied to the CNN host. “But, secondly, what they [Republicans] are proposing in this so-called SAVE Act is like Jim Crow 2.0.”
The Jim Crow laws served as the basis of legalized segregation across America’s southern states throughout the late 19th and much of the 20th century. They were finally overturned amid the civil rights movement the 1960s.
“They make it so hard to get any kind of voter ID that more than 20 million legitimate people, mainly poorer people and people of color, will not be able to vote under this law,” Schumer continued. “We will not let it pass in the Senate. We are fighting it tooth and nail.”
WATCH:
The SAVE Act is an “outrageous proposal that shows the sort of political bias of the MAGA right,” the minority leader added.
“They don’t want poor people to vote. They don’t want people of color to vote, because they often don’t vote for them,” the New York Democrat claimed.
Seventy-six percent of black respondents, 77% of Asian respondents, and 82% of Hispanic respondents supported requiring all voters to show photo ID to be able to cast a ballot, according to Pew Research Center’s August 2025 survey.
The House passed the SAVE America Act Wednesday with only one Democrat, moderate Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, joining Republicans in support. Cuellar is of Mexican descent and represents a district on the American southern border which is over 70% Hispanic.
Schumer also suggested during his CNN appearance the notion of federal agents monitoring the polls to stop suspected illegal immigrants from casting ballots in elections “flies in the face” of democracy.
“They show no evidence of voter fraud. They show there’s so little in the country,” he said. “And to have ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, these thugs, be by the polling places, that just flies in the face of how democracy works, of how we’ve had elections for hundreds of years very successfully.”
“Why should you ban ICE from being at polling places? Because illegals aren’t supposed to vote in this America,” Republican Missouri Rep. Jason Smith said Thursday on CNBC. “Apparently Democrats don’t like the rule of law. If they don’t like the rule of law, they need to change it.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
