The fate of a bipartisan housing bill that cleared Congress overwhelmingly is in limbo after President Trump canceled his plans on Wednesday to sign it at a ceremony at the Capitol.
Mr. Trump has dismissed the bill as “minor,” and he has not made clear whether he plans to eventually sign it. As of Thursday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson had yet to formally present the bill to Mr. Trump for his signature. The two were scheduled to meet Thursday afternoon at the White House, where they were expected to discuss the measure.
Once Congress presents the bill to Mr. Trump, the president has three options:
Here’s a closer look at the three pathways by which the legislation could become law or die.
Inaction by Trump could save the bill — or tank it.
As long as Mr. Trump refuses to sign the legislation, the simplest path forward for it would seem to be for Mr. Johnson to simply send it to his desk anyway. Under the Constitution, a president has 10 days, excluding Sundays, to sign or return a bill. If he has not done either by the end of that period, it becomes law without his signature.
But there’s a catch. If Congress is adjourned when that 10-day period ends, the unsigned bill is killed in what is known as a “pocket veto.” There are outstanding legal questions about whether this would happen during a congressional recess — when the chamber is out of session temporarily, as the House and the Senate are scheduled to be for 10 days beginning July 3, and for most of August — or only when it is adjourned at the end of a session, which will not happen until the end of the year.
That question could create a dilemma for Mr. Johnson, who might want to wait to send Mr. Trump the bill, or even change recess plans, to head off a potential pocket veto.
Trump signs the bill.
The White House has declined to say whether the president might sign the bill another time. Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday afternoon that he was “not signing the housing bill,” pointing again to his demand that the Senate pass legislation that would impose national restrictions on voter registration and voting by mail.
But Mr. Trump has previously made the same kind of threat, only to relent. Congressional Republicans, eager to celebrate a bill they can point to as evidence that they are addressing voters’ concerns about high living costs, are likely to continue pressuring him.
Trump vetoes the bill.
Mr. Trump has been consistently lukewarm about the housing measure, making it clear he does not consider it a priority, and has criticized it in recent days. Should he decide to veto it outright, Republicans in Congress would have to decide whether they wanted to try to rally their members to defy him in an effort to push it into law anyway.
That would take two-thirds majorities in both the House and the Senate, a threshold the bill easily cleared in both chambers this week, but one that might be more difficult to reach again if the president came out strongly against the legislation in a veto message.
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