What did Donald Trump do today?

He accidentally told the truth about his attempts at voter suppression.

Trump has been pushing a voter suppression bill for months now known as the SAVE Act. It would instantly disenfranchise tens of millions of legitimate voters, if it were allowed by courts to go into effect—which it almost certainly wouldn't. It would require voters to show not only photo ID like a driver's license, but also "documentary proof of citizenship," which in most cases would mean either a passport or a birth certificate matching their current legal name.

That means that, for example, a married woman who took her husband's name and didn't have a passport would not only have to be able to present her original birth certificate, but also court paperwork for her name change. Many people simply don't have those documents handy, or have lost them over the years, and getting replacements can take months. Anyone in that situation would be unable to vote in the 2026 elections.  

The lengths to which Trump has been flogging this DOA bill have infuriated Senate Republicans, who are now in real danger of losing control of the chamber in spite of a terrible map for Democrats. Today, the Senate adjourned for five weeks, killing any chance of a last-minute vote. (Democrats could block it with a filibuster, but the bill is so toxic at this point that most Congressional Republicans are trying to sweep it under the rug themselves.)

In what was apparently intended to be a comment on this fact, Trump posted an Instagram video featuring an unusual guest on his private microblogging page: former Vice-President Kamala Harris. In the video, Harris accurately laid out the various forms of voter suppression that Trump and his political allies were looking to enact, and said this specifically about the SAVE Act:

HARRIS: So you've got the Supreme Court doing its thing, then, this president is trying to push this SAVE Act, which basically would require that for people to register to vote, you're going to have to have proof of who you are through a passport, which a lot of Americans don't have. Or a birth certificate—same point. Obstacles to make it difficult for you to register to vote.

At some point during the morning the original post was taken down and replaced with one where the video cut off after "proof of who you are," making it sound like Harris was objecting to there being any verification of voters at all.

Why does this matter?

• There's only one reason a politician tries to make it hard for citizens to vote. 

• If Trump could make the case for this bill, he wouldn't have to lie about it.