President Trump says he doesn’t care about the midterm elections. He says he doesn’t think much about Americans’ economic hardship resulting from the war in Iran. And now he is brushing off a landmark, bipartisan bill to lower housing costs in the United States, characterizing the legislation as a matter of “minor importance.”
At a moment of political peril for the president and Republicans, Mr. Trump’s priorities seem increasingly detached from the concerns of voters and his party. His focus is trained on his own obsessions and pet projects, including his expansive and costly renovations at the White House and around the nation’s capital, a topic that he returns to again and again.
“The thing I do best in life is build,” Mr. Trump said last month, as he summoned reporters to the White House to show off progress on his $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which is being erected on the site of the now-demolished East Wing.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has been especially animated about issues with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which he ordered painted blue but has since been plagued by blooms of green algae and peeling polyurethane.
Perhaps the most telling example came on Wednesday, when Mr. Trump refused to sign the housing bill until Republicans passed legislation that he cared about more: the SAVE America Act. Mr. Trump contends the bill would address his claims of widespread election fraud, which have repeatedly been debunked.
Mr. Trump has exhorted his party to change Senate rules to pass the legislation, but Republicans say they do not have the votes to do that.
The episode has left many Republicans privately seething, in part because all the president had to do was show up and sign the housing bill, which they hoped would help prove to voters they were trying to bring down costs.
The stage had been set in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall for the signing ceremony, and the White House had already started its victory lap. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, called the bill “another promise made, promise kept.” James Blair, a top political adviser to the president, said the legislation fulfilled “a signature commitment.”
But less than 90 minutes before Mr. Trump was supposed to arrive on Capitol Hill, he canceled “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.”
He also said the housing bill was of “minor importance” compared with his other goals.
For much of his professional life, Mr. Trump has acted on impulse, and even his allies lament that he could benefit from more discipline and long-term planning. Most Republicans hesitate to publicly criticize the president, fearful his wrath will end their political careers. But as they work to keep control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, Republicans running for re-election privately acknowledge that the president’s political agenda is often out of step with theirs.
“President Trump has had limited legislative wins in his first two years, and this bipartisan housing bill addresses an important issue for many families and directly addresses their affordability concerns,” Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist based in Texas, wrote in a text message. “If he had substantive problems with the bill, they should have been communicated before the House and Senate passed it overwhelmingly.”
He added, “Congressional Republicans want to take the win and talk about it back home, but as of now he’s not letting them.”
Now White House officials dispute the notion that Mr. Trump has hindered Republicans’ political agenda, and they say he is committed to bringing down housing costs.
“The president will not stop fighting until the American dream of homeownership is within reach for every American, which is why he continues to sign bold new executive orders and calls on Congress to pass further legislation,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a statement. “At the same time, President Trump has made clear publicly that passing the SAVE America Act is Congress’s most urgent priority right now to strengthen election integrity and protect our democracy.”
But Republicans wanted to seize the opportunity to score a political win, and the news conference was already underway when Mr. Trump announced he would not show up.
Representative French Hill, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Financial Services Committee who was one of the lead sponsors of the bill, was celebrating the legislation as the culmination of years of promises that dated back to the Reagan era.
“Let’s show the American people what legislating looks like,” he said. “Let’s show the American people how you bring together and do something on a bicameral basis. And we did that, and we did that in conjunction with President Trump and his priorities.”
But on Thursday, after Mr. Trump threw the bill into limbo, Mr. Hill was less cheery.
“I’m not going to discuss where it stands,” he told reporters of the bill. “I just look forward to it being signed.”
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
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