President Trump continued to hem and haw on Monday about whether he would sign a popular piece of bipartisan legislation intended to lower housing costs for Americans nationwide.
“It’s a yawn,” Mr. Trump said of the bill that lawmakers in his party are desperate for him to pass on the eve of a tough midterm election.
Mr. Trump has been openly sabotaging the housing bill since Wednesday, when he abruptly pulled out of a much-anticipated signing ceremony that was set up for him on Capitol Hill. The president threw down an ultimatum instead: He would sign the bill only if Congress would first pass another bill, the SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter voter ID rules that would make it harder to vote.
The day after Mr. Trump pulled his own rug out from under himself at the signing ceremony, Speaker Mike Johnson said he still planned to send the housing bill to the president to sign.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump said that he had yet to receive it and that he was not sure he would sign it once it hit his desk.
“I think it’s so unimportant,” he said. Later, he added, “To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”
The disdainful remarks for a bill meant to alleviate Americans’ economic struggles are the latest in a series of similar comments that have an ever growing number of Republicans freaking out ahead of the midterms. “It’s a yawn” follows such observations as “I don’t care about the midterms,” “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation” and “I love the inflation.”
On Monday, Mr. Trump acknowledged, if only a little, how counterintuitive it was that a self-identified builder was the only roadblock in the normally blocked-up capital to passing a bill all about building.
“Nobody knows more” about housing “in the history of the presidency,” he said. “Nobody did well like me in housing. I made a lot of money. I made a lot of money with housing.”
This was how he explained his rationale for blocking the bill: “When I look at that bill, it’s a bill. But when I look at the SAVE America Act, it’s about saving America.”
The SAVE America Act would require voters to prove their citizenship in person upon registering to vote and would crack down on voting by mail. Mr. Trump has for years talked about mail voting as a kind of swindle that is central to his belief system that elections in this country are not free and fair, despite all evidence to the contrary.
His efforts to torque election laws by stamping out mail voting hit a major snag on Monday, when the Supreme Court ruled that state laws allowing ballots to arrive after Election Day are legal.
Now, nearly halfway into his second term, Mr. Trump’s fixation on election law has led him to hold back the housing bill, much to the dismay of many in his party.
He has demanded that Senate Republicans change the filibuster rules to pass his election bill. And yet, he seems to understand it is most likely a futile pursuit.
“That’s probably not going to happen,” Mr. Trump acknowledged on Monday, “because we have four Republican senators, maybe five, that just won’t vote for it.”
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