Nicolle Wallace floored by John Thune's 'malpractice': 'Driving his car into the river!'

President Donald Trump is forcing his allies in the Senate to undermine the GOP for the sake of his demands to hold a vote on a long-shot bill to impose aggressive voter suppression, MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace argued on Thursday.

"At a time when 70 percent of Americans say the economy sucks, 64 percent of Americans disapprove of the job he's doing, and that is a number from before the war in Iran began, his most prominent media allies, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Joe Rogan, are a big thumbs down on the war in Iran. His political coalition is blowing up sort of in full view," said Wallace, talking to The New York Times' Nick Corasaniti.

"I would extend that to [Senators] John Thune and John Cornyn," Wallace continued. "Cornyn is at least running in the beauty contest against the what's-his-name, Ken Paxton. The two of them want the Trump endorsement because Trump has said he's going to make the other guy drop out. So there's no runoff on that side. But John Thune driving the car into the river, politically speaking, over the SAVE Act at a time when 70 percent of Americans are economically distressed, is a political act of malpractice that's unprecedented in modern political life."

Corasaniti agreed — and pointed out that even if the bill did somehow pass as Trump wants, it's not even clear it would be the midterm salvation for Republicans he thinks it is.

"If we look at its core, this documentary, proof of citizenship, there have been studies that show that this would actually harm Republicans more than Democrats, especially in the short term," said Corasaniti. The Save Democracy Foundation did a study in June 2025 that found that there were much more Republican states or states that Trump did very well in that had low percentages of passports, and passports under the SAVE America Act were to pass, which is again, an extreme long shot at the moment. There's no indication that, you know, this is on the horizon. But were it to pass, you would see a lot of these states that have — that are big Trump-supporting states struggle to find their documentary proof of citizenship."

"If they don't have passports, you then need a — you need a birth certificate and you need something else, some kind of photo ID," Corasaniti continued. "And it's also true that a lot of older, rural white voters tend to not have passports or other documentary proof of citizenship. And some more recently, naturalized citizens or or immigrants have it's been more recent that they've gotten their citizenship and their papers are more in line."

"So if this entire act is indeed a political one and designed to help kind of, you know, bulwark the president against the the tides of low poll numbers and just the historical swing of a midterm elections after a presidential, the documentary proof of citizenship provision might end up backfiring on Republicans," he concluded.

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