(AP Photo\/Luis M. Alvarez)<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump told NBC News on Saturday he is holding off on endorsing a Republican candidate for Senate in Texas for the time being. One big reason? He wants to see if Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and other Republicans can get the SAVE America Act passed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot has to do with the SAVE America Act. A lot is going to determine \u2014 Republicans have to get that passed, because that will secure voting in this country,\u201d Trump said.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n The president has been pushing hard for the legislation \u2014 which would require identification to vote in federal elections \u2014 in recent weeks. If Cornyn can help get it through the Senate, that could be enough to win Trump\u2019s backing against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,\u00a0who will be facing the incumbent in a May 26 runoff.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll let you know that over the next week or so,\u201d Trump said when asked if he would endorse Cornyn. \u201cI like him. I always liked him.\u201d<\/p>\n The senator appears to be working hard to get Trump\u2019s support, with Cornyn last week announcing he had changed his mind on the Senate filibuster rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n He said he has felt for years the rule, which requires 60 votes to end debates on legislation, was important \u2014 but not as important as the SAVE Act, which he cosponsored. Cornyn said Democrats are now \u201cweaponizing\u201d the filibuster to block legislation most Americans want.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt,\u201d Cornyn wrote in a New York Post op-ed.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n His op-ed was published on the Wednesday \u2014 the same morning Trump prodded<\/a>\u00a0Senate Majority Leader\u00a0John Thune\u00a0(R-SD) to get the SAVE Act passed, after Thune has complained he does not have enough votes to make it happen.<\/p>\n CNN data guru\u00a0Harry Enten\u00a0recently reported most Americans\u00a0support voter ID laws.\u00a0<\/a>Enten highlighted a Pew poll that found 71% of Dems and 95% of Republicans support the legislation.<\/p>\n \u201cNormally, you might expect hey, there\u2019d be a big divide by party, with Republicans really for it and Democrats really against it,\u201d Enten said. \u201cBut not really here.\u201d<\/p>\n Paxton is vying for Cornyn\u2019s Senate seat, while Sen. Ted Cruz is not up for reelection until 2030.<\/p>\n Trump told NBC News that Cornyn being in favor of nixing the filibuster was something he appreciated \u201cvery much.\u201d But it was not enough to get his endorsement, for now at least.<\/p>\n The post Trump Withholds Endorsement in Tight Texas Senate Race \u2014 Says the SAVE Act Is the X Factor<\/a> first appeared on Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(AP Photo\/Luis M. Alvarez) President Donald Trump told NBC News on Saturday he is holding off on endorsing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[145,3309,1967,38657,2424,11590,77538,13164,80742,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-205163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-donald-trump","tag-john-cornyn","tag-ken-paxton","tag-nbc-news","tag-republicans","tag-save-act","tag-save-america-act","tag-senate","tag-senate-filibuster","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}