Is there still a granite wall agreement between the US and Israel? Netanyahu visit raises questions

**Christy Strawser** (0:01)
The day's biggest stories, the people behind the headlines, the conversations you won't hear anywhere else. I'm Christy Strawser, you're listening to Audacy's On Deadline. Remember summer break?
Lemonade stands, freewheeling afternoons at the beach. Well, Congress still gets a summer break, although members say they continue to work back in their home districts. But whatever they're doing, President Donald Trump wants them to stop and get back to their offices. Trump demanded that Senate Majority Leader John Thune cancel their August break until Senators pass the SAVE Act, a strict proof of citizenship voting bill that he supports.
Critics note that even if they did cancel recess, the bill is controversial enough that Republicans seem to lack the votes to advance it. Here's WWL in New Orleans.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:45)
Talking to Todd Bell, Professor Director of the Political Management Program at George Washington University, Todd, I want to get to the politics behind this. Why is it important that they take this August recess?

**Todd Bell** (0:56)
Right, they traditionally take the August recess to go back home and to be with their constituents, and especially to do some campaigning during an election year like now. And it's really hot in DC in August, and they just don't want to be there. So traditionally, that's when they take a recess.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:12)
Is it likely that they still do the same thing? Is there any way they have enough votes to keep the Senate in session?

**Todd Bell** (1:19)
It looks like they have four votes to keep the Senate in session. I don't know that that's going to be enough because we also have Mitch McConnell, who is absent, which changes the ratio you need for a majority. I don't think that they're going to have enough, but they will just take the vote anyway. See, usually when they adjourn, they do it by what's called a Senate unanimous consent degree where any one senator can object and usually not do.
And Mike Lee has said he was going to object and force a vote on it. This is just sort of to try to name and shame any senators who won't stay and pursue to say that.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:59)
Kind of like everybody's stabbing Caesar, right?

**Todd Bell** (2:01)
Well, it kind of is. I mean, everybody's trying to shame each other into doing this and trying to get as much as they can dirt on each other for the upcoming electoral cycle. We know a lot of this stuff is going to end up in commercials.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:14)
So is this a problem that needs a solution or not?

**Todd Bell** (2:17)
The amount of illegal voting that actually happens in the United States is incredibly rare and even very right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation have found it to be thousands upon thousands of percents. I mean, they found 99 cases going back all the way to year 2000 and that's thousands upon thousands of elections. So it's less than one vote per 10 elections or something like that, infinitesimally small. But there are things, people do worry about people not being eligible to vote. I mean, some Republicans would generally have this fear. We have this recent episode in New Jersey where in New Jersey, you can get an ID by not being a legal citizen and you check a box there and those people were automatically registered to vote. There are about 6,600 of them and that was a mistake that they're trying to take care of. But there of course are penalties for those people if they actually tried to vote. So that is being rectified. But it's usually, we call it a problem that doesn't necessarily need a solution.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:22)
Somebody texted in, a couple of people texted in and said it's the same. Whenever I get texts from a lot of different people saying the same thing, I got to believe it's somebody's talking point about it's the same as a library card?

**Todd Bell** (3:33)
No, it's not exactly the same as a library card or some people are trying to say, you have to show your ID to get pasta at Olive Garden, that sort of thing. If you have to register, you have to have your birth certificate and you have to have a passport, which is real high level of identification.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:48)
To get pasta at Olive Garden?

**Todd Bell** (3:50)
Well, that's what people were saying, if you sign up for the year long pasta deal or something. But of course, you have to have your ID to do banking and people say, our voting system should be as secure as our financial system.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:05)
That's a pretty strong argument.