A House Republican is drafting legislation to try to bypass Senate rules and advance President Donald Trump’s push to require enhanced voter identification. The bill would cost taxpayers $250 million over five years.

According to Politico, U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) is working on the “SAVE America Through REAL ID Act,” which would provide funds for lower-income voters to obtain a REAL ID, while encouraging states to require a REAL ID to vote.

“In order to address that one issue, we’ve created this grant program for states to use to help people who meet the income qualifications … to be able to get a free REAL ID,” Fedorchak told Politico.

Fedorchak hopes the $250 million price tag will make the legislation eligible to pass in the Senate under the reconciliation process, which requires only a simple majority — thus likely bypassing the need for any Democratic votes.

Fedorchak’s bill would be “an alternative to the proof-of-citizenship and voter-ID mandates in the original SAVE America Act that would likely be excluded from a party-line bill by the Senate parliamentarian,” Politico reports.

Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill reported that House GOP leaders were “scrambling to find ways to squeeze pieces of the SAVE America Act into their next party-line bill.” That would include “using funding carrots instead of policy mandates to clear the Senate parliamentarian.”

Despite repeated pressure from President Trump, as recently as Thursday afternoon, the SAVE America Act has stalled in the Senate. Trump wants that legislation to require all voters to show voter ID and proof of citizenship, while sharply narrowing the use of mail-in ballots. Trump is also pressing for the bill to ban “men in women’s sports,” and “transgender mutilization [sic] surgery for our children.”

Back in February the president vowed the SAVE America Act would pass into law, “one way or another.” Critics see the controversial bill as voter suppression legislation.

Democrats oppose the bill in part because it requires a passport or birth certificate to register to vote — something tens of millions of Americans do not currently have, according to voting rights groups. It also narrows generally accepted forms of photo ID to vote.

Others oppose it because it requires states to run their voter rolls through federal immigration databases, which reportedly have a high error rate. Critics also say that it creates a large unfunded administrative burden for states.

In April, Trump told Republicans that enacting the SAVE Act would “guarantee the midterms” — while claiming that was not the reason he was pushing the bill. “I don’t think you can politically exist if you’re not going to do voter ID and these things.”

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is promoting what it calls “President Trump’s 500 Days of Wins” as farm bankruptcies have spiked.

On the social media platform X, a series of seven posts celebrates Trump administration programs such as “Make America Healthy Again” and “Farmers First,” while promoting the USDA’s efforts surrounding national security, rural prosperity, lawfare, forestry, and trade.

“Today we celebrate President Trump’s 500th day in office,” the post reads. “A historic period of progress for American agriculture and rural communities. We shattered export records, slashed burdensome regulations, rebuilt rural infrastructure, and unlocked energy independence so our farmers and ranchers can thrive. The work continues.”

The USDA added: “Delivered historic direct relief to farmers and ranchers through $12 billion in farmer bridge payments $10 billion in emergency economic assistance, $16 billion in supplemental disaster relief, and more than $2+ billion in livestock disaster assistance.”

NPR reported in December that the “Trump administration announced $12 billion in one-time payments to farmers in the wake of this year’s tariff hikes … primarily targeting farmers who grow crops such as soybeans and corn.”

According to the Farm Journal, farm bankruptcies spiked in April, and “recent Chapter 12 bankruptcy data shows a significant uptick in filings.”

Reporting that “there have been 62 Chapter 12 filings in April 2026 alone,” Farm Journal calls it “the highest monthly total since February 2020, and it’s a 130% increase from April 2025.”

President Trump’s Iran war has driven up the prices of diesel and fertilizer that farmers depend on, and his global tariff war has cut into exports to countries like China.

On the Instagram social media platform, some users were less than enthusiastic about the USDA’a post.

“Time to unfollow the USDA since it’s become a propaganda channel for the lunacy happening in the federal government under this administration,” wrote one user. Another wrote: “American agriculture is in shambles.” And a third said, “delete this.”

The Times of London reported that “farmers handed Trump his first loss of the midterms” this week.

“Unrest in America’s heartland over the impact of President Trump’s policies saw him suffer a rare primary setback in Iowa, and is leading Democrats to sense a revival in the former bellwether state,” The Times noted. “The mainly rural central state that voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012 has become reliably Republican since the rise of Trump but analysts say that rising fuel and fertilizer prices and the Iran war make its races for governor, a US Senate seat and two of its four House seats increasingly hard to call.”

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Former Trump Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor is warning that President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an order that roughly “triples” the number of federal employees the president can dismiss at will, for any reason or none.

“The White House quietly issued an order turning 8,000 top ‘civil service’ jobs into roles that serve at the pleasure of the president,” Taylor explained, noting that these are the federal government’s “top lieutenants,” the “most senior career officials.”

These “are the people serving right under Trump’s political appointees (the ones he assigns to run federal departments and agencies). Presidents get ‘their people’ to reshape policy priorities.” The list of political appointees in any administration ordinarily runs about 4,000 people.

By making the next level down essentially political appointees, Trump “just tripled the size of his personal army inside government,” says Taylor, calling it “a breathtaking takeover of the machinery of state.”

“These aren’t rando’s,” Taylor added on social media. “They’re the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees. Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him.”

The federal civil service exists to carry out the wishes of the administration, but its duty, as he said, is to the law, not to any one president. That’s how a new administration can enter the White House while the government continues to run.

As Taylor noted, as DHS chief of staff, he too was a political appointee — someone who could be fired at any time.

“I wasn’t protected by anything other than the president’s favor,” Taylor says. “That’s why — when you make a decision to speak out about wrongdoing — you’ve got to be prepared to quit or be fired. You have no protections if you fall out of favor with the president. Unfortunately, that’s why you see so many Pam Bondis and Todd Blanches, eagerly doing whatever Trump wants. They know how easy it is to lose their job.”

That’s why the “top lieutenants” should not be political appointees, Taylor argues.

“Everyone underneath those positions, some two million civil servants, has historically been insulated from political whim by removal protections dating to the reforms that ended the spoils system back in the 1800s,” he writes. “What just happened is almost certainly illegal. A coalition of federal employees unions are, I hope, prepared to fight hard.”

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