President Donald Trump and his closest allies on Capitol Hill said they’re willing to do whatever it takes to pass the so-called SAVE America Act before the midterms — except follow through on threats to cancel August recess.

A group of ultraconservative House Republicans and even a few GOP senators lobbied for the chamber to forgo its summer break until it passed the voter ID bill. But last week the MAGA wing yet again had a hard pill to swallow: They simply don’t have the votes.

“We’re going to have to keep fighting on that one. We’re not done, we’re just getting started,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who had promised to try to keep the Senate in session, said in a video after the chamber adjourned without passing the bill. “We did our best, left no stone unturned. I wish the outcome had been different.”

Lee and others had threatened to force a roll call vote on the motion to adjourn — something that’s become a rarity in modern Congress — but when push came to shove in the early hours on Saturday morning, the Senate adjourned by voice vote. 

Any recognized senator can ask for the yeas and nays, triggering a formal roll call vote. Nobody did so Saturday, allowing the chamber to leave without forcing senators to go on the record. 

Instead, Lee and 10 of his Republican colleagues submitted statements to the Congressional Record noting that “had there been a roll call vote on the motion to adjourn, I would have voted nay.” He defended his reasoning in a social media post, saying “the recess was set up as part of the same unanimous consent agreement that allowed us to vote on” other priorities on the way out of town, like confirming Attorney General Todd Blanche and passing a stopgap funding measure. 

“I think the Senate should have stayed in. I think they should keep fighting to show the American people they’re fighting for them. The Senate didn’t do that,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Monday on Fox Business. “So I think we need to focus in September, the House and the Senate, on finishing the job and delivering for the people.”

The SAVE America Act saga has been plaguing Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., for months. Although the House has passed various versions of the measure, which requires proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID at the polls, Thune hasn’t been able to muster the votes from Democrats and Republicans alike. 

Still, Trump and House Freedom Caucus members have pushed Thune to take extreme measures, like abolishing the filibuster, to jam it through the chamber. That, too, does not have the votes amongst Senate Republicans.

Thune quipped to reporters last week: “It seems to me sometimes I’m the only one who can count to 50 in this town.” 

“We don’t have the votes to get rid of the filibuster, and we aren’t flipping” enough Democrats to vote in favor of SAVE, he said.

“Those two realities are there,” he added. “Is there somewhere in here for budget reconciliation that we can do pieces of the SAVE America Act, or at least in a fiscal way deal with funding for some of those things? Maybe. We’ll see what the traffic will bear on that.” 

They immediately ran into several red lights.

Senate Republicans were working through the night Friday to try and find a path forward on a budget resolution for a third reconciliation package that would pump up defense spending and impose elements of the voter ID bill, but the decision to scrap a planned procedural vote came after a late-night call with the president about the lack of votes. 

Budget Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Trump agreed to give the reconciliation effort more time to shore up support. 

“There was a concern whether or not we could actually pass the budget resolution tonight,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting. “Then we had a discussion with the president. He agrees. Don’t take the vote tonight, and just work diligently through August and September to do an actually … better reconciliation bill.”

Though the weeks do give Senate Republicans time to explore more viable paths to try to move SAVE or some of its provisions, they face the same inevitable truth: math.

Before they jetted away for recess, Senate Republicans tried to push a standalone photo-ID requirement bill introduced by Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, but it met with defeat on a procedural vote along party lines, 52-46.

The Senate’s impasse continues to fan interchamber tensions. At least one House Republican, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, signaled she would vote against any Senate bill in the House until SAVE is passed. 

“If we want to win in November, if Republicans want to be given the majority again in the House and the Senate, then we need to do what we said we would do: secure America,” Roy said on Fox Business.

Aidan Quigley, Paul M. Krawzak and Aris Folley contributed to this report.