July 10 (UPI) — A bipartisan housing bill that swept the House and Senate is set to become law at midnight Friday if President Donald Trump doesn’t veto it, and he said Friday morning on social media that he won’t sign it.
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act was passed on June 29 by a wide margin of Democrats and Republicans in both chambers of Congress, but the president canceled a signing ceremony at the last minute and said he wouldn’t sign it until Congress passed Trump’s pet project, the SAVE America Act, which they don’t have the support to do.
On Friday, he posted on Truth Social that he refuses to sign it.
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97% with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” he wrote.
He didn’t mention a veto, but it’s still a possibility.
“The Act states, quite simply, that to Vote a person must show PHOTO VOTER I.D., PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP, AND THAT THERE WILL BE NO MORE CROOKED, CORRUPT, & DESTABILIZING MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPTIONS for Military, Disabled, Illness, and Travel!). THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it! If the Dumocrats, or any RINO (or worse!) working with them, do not allow a positive Vote on SAVE AMERICA, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and pass this, and every other Bill that true Republicans have ever dreamt of (In addition to the upcoming Budget BOMB and the 1929 catastrophic style DEBT CEILING BILL!). The Dumocrats will TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, if and when they ever get the chance to do so, in their very first hour – And I will no longer be able to call them Dumocrats again! The title of DUMB will revert to the Republicans who allowed this horrible calamity to happen to our Party, and our Nation, itself! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he wrote.
If the president vetoes the bill, Congress will likely have the votes to override it. It would need a two-thirds majority to pass the override in the House and Senate.
“This is the exact kind of bill they want to point to and say Republicans are working on issues that their voters care about, and Democrats would want the same,” Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, told The Washington Post. “That’s not the signal that the administration is sending.”
Since the bill passed and Trump refused to sign it, he has called it “a yawn.”
“To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, everything is a big yawn,” he said.
The SAVE Act is an election bill that would require voters to prove they are citizens when registering to vote. Critics argue that it would disenfranchise too many voters because of the types of proof it would require.
The housing bill includes measures that modernize building standards, encourage renovating older homes, encourage communities to build more housing with funding and grant programs, local governments to reform restrictive zoning policies around building housing and effectively ban private equity from buying up single-family homes. Critics of the bill say it doesn’t go far enough, but they acknowledge it’s a good first step.
It’s the first bipartisan measure that’s passed this Congress.
Some Democrats have been publicly pushing the president to sign the bill.
“It’s been sitting on President Trump’s desk long enough. Sign the bill,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., posted on X.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said on X, “Republicans and Democrats worked together to pass a bill to build more housing and stop hedge funds from buying up single-family homes, but Trump is holding it hostage. He needs to stop playing games and sign the bill so more Americans can finally afford homes.”
