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The Senate was left in a state of confusion and anger in the wake of President Donald Trump’s last-minute declaration that he would not sign into law a colossal housing package filled with his own priorities.
It comes as Trump is expected to have a closed-door lunch with Senate Republicans who are already frustrated with a laundry list of his recent decisions that have either derailed or blown up their attempts to move forward with his agenda.
Trump said he wouldn’t sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Package into law, which passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support, unless Republicans ram through the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, a voter-ID and citizenship verification package that doesn’t have the votes to succeed in the Senate.
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“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The sudden decision had some Republicans accusing Trump of handing Democrats a victory.
“There is a huge group of people who really appreciate what the president’s doing right now, and it’s the Democratic Party,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said. “And we’ve got to get our act together and stop surprising people and start having … working messages.
“This housing bill was a very clear, bipartisan effort to address some of the basics of affordability, and we are here,” he continued. “It makes no sense.”
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., one of the chief architects of the housing package, was furious that Trump refused to sign the bill into law.
“Can I underline crisis three times? We have a bill that Republicans and Democrats have built. It is good for urban America, rural America, first-time homebuyers, renters, seniors, families that are expanding,” Warren said. “It’s a bill about doing good things. And Donald Trump says he just doesn’t care.”
Before torpedoing the housing package, Trump had already earned the frustration of Republicans with his decision to derail the process of reauthorizing the nation’s key counter-terrorism tool, the memorandum of understanding with Iran, and his push for an “anti-weaponization” fund that nearly blew up a $70 billion immigration enforcement package.
The GOP is hungry for a stream of wins to push on the campaign trail as they inch closer to midterm elections where several incumbent Republicans are running in tight races.
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But for now, they are mired in debate over whether they can pass the SAVE America Act, which Trump is expected to push for during the lunch.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, described the situation as “inexplicable.”
“I mean, this, this is not — I don’t know if there is precedent for it,” Cornyn said.
When asked if Trump would be any more successful in generating the votes to pass the legislation, Cornyn acknowledged that the president had a lot of sway, but that if the solution was to eliminate the filibuster, the votes similarly weren’t there.
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“At some point, we got to deal with reality,” he said.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who worked on the housing package, agreed with Trump that Republicans should try to pass the SAVE America Act and explore all options to do so, like attaching it to a third budget reconciliation package or forcing debate on the floor.
But he acknowledged that the votes currently weren’t there to pass it.
“I will stand on one leg and bark like a dog if that’s what it takes to help this pass,” Kennedy said. “But you can’t make people vote in a way that they don’t want to do. I mean, that’s what we’re up against.”
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