House GOP merges SAVE Act with defense bill as conservative holdouts dig in

House Republican leaders are making another bid to save the Save America Act, which stalled last week after a conservative rebellion froze floor action, but GOP lawmakers behind the blockade do not support the plan.

The House Rules Committee on Monday approved by an 8-4 vote a rule combining the annual defense policy bill with a Trump-backed ballot measure in a rare procedural maneuver before sending the package to the Senate.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the panel who was among conservatives who supported the floor blockade on SAVE last week, did not vote.

Meanwhile, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla. — the leader of the lower chamber’s SAVE protest — argued that the procedural tactic would not force the Senate to act, and instead called for adding the SAVE amendment to the defense bill.

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“The only way to get the Senate to pass this is to make sure it is in the NDAA bill, which means my amendment(s) must be made into an order,” the Florida Republican wrote to X. “I’m not trying to be difficult, but this is what 80% of Americans want and this is what we promised the American people, so I stand by my decision.”

Johnson’s offer comes after he rejected a call from the Conservative opposition last week to legislate parts of SAVE in another ‘Big Beautiful Bill’.

Given the slim majority of Republicans in the House, the Speaker will likely need their support to pass a rule later Tuesday that would draft the House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Only a handful of GOP defectors can afford to lose, as procedural votes tend to be party-line.

Tuesday’s vote will also advance a spending bill providing funding for the State Department and other foreign operations for fiscal 2027 and a resolution commemorating the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans now call the Working Families Tax Cut.

If Republican leadership does not advance legislation, the House floor will be effectively frozen and lawmakers could return home early before the July 4 recess.

Johnson warned on Monday that continuing the ground blockade would be a “self-defeating” approach.

“This makes no sense,” Johnson told reporters. “We need to move forward with the legislation, and that’s what I’ll tell them.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson answers questions during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on June 3, 2026. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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But Luna has expressed reluctance to open the door to the House of Representatives until he receives assurances about the RELIEF America Act’s fate in the Senate.

“But to say we’re delaying the process. That’s passing legislation,” Luna told reporters Monday while standing next to Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who attended the SAVE protest. “If people had elected us to come here and vote according to the wishes of the party, then things would be very different.”

Democrats who want to see the rules package fail have argued that GOP holdouts shouldn’t listen to Republican leadership because their proposals would be obsolete once they reach the Senate.

“Let me be clear, the Senate is just going to repeal the SAVINGS Act,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Conn., said during Rules Committee debate on Monday. “They’ve already said combining this with the NDAA bill doesn’t prevent that. Nothing in this rule would prevent that.”

“Today, due to this rule, SAVE has a 0% chance of resulting in the NDAA,” he continued. “So this is a ‘cover your back’ maneuver, so to speak.”

Under the rule approved Monday, the procedural maneuver would make it easier for SAVE to tie into the NDAA without requiring lawmakers to vote again.

The leadership did not opt ​​for a version of the election bill that included all of the president’s SAVE priorities, such as restricting mail-in voting and banning men from women’s sports and gender reassignment procedures in children. Johnson has yet to ask House Republicans to consider the sweeping measure, and it’s unclear whether a crackdown on mail-in ballots will clear the chamber.

Johnson’s SAVE push comes at a time when House Republicans have little clout to pass the bill in the Senate; GOP leaders say there aren’t enough votes to pass it here. The ballot measure struggled to win unified Republican support, let alone the 60 votes needed to overcome the Democratic filibuster.

President Donald Trump spoke to reporters at the White House. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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Trump harshly criticized the five alleged individuals: Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Bill Cassidy, R-La. and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. – In a post on Truth Social on Monday, he argued that the group “should vote to SAVE OUR COUNTRY.”

“There can be no more excuses!” he wrote.