The GOP's time in the barrel

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The housing bill that sailed through the US Congress this week is going to become law no matter what the president decides to do. On Monday, it passed the Senate by a vote of 85-5. On Tuesday, it passed the House by a vote of 358-32. Even if Donald Trump were to veto it, those numbers suggest the will to override him. The United States might be divided on other issues, but not on affordability. That crisis is unifying. This act of Congress reflects that.

Yet Trump said this morning that he wouldn't sign it until Senate Republicans nuke the filibuster and pass the so-called SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote (in addition to all the other hoops required by state law that you have to jump through to vote.) He apparently believes that the controversial piece of legislation would save him the humiliation of defeat in November. (That is by no means a certainty). He also apparently believes he has leverage. He doesn't. The Constitution states that unless the Congress is adjourned (meaning its session has ended), a bill becomes law in 10 days, signed or not.

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According to USA Today, the legislation would ease federal regulations on manufactured homes, which would boost the supply of housing and therefore lower housing costs. It would also bar private equity firms from gobbling up housing stock and jacking up prices. Maybe that would work. I think it's worth a try, as housing has been getting more scarce since the mortgage-backed meltdown of 2008. What I do know, however, is that everyone in Washington should at least pretend to be concerned about the cost of living if they know what's good for them. If the ease by which this bill passed is any indication, everyone does.

Everyone but Donald Trump.

The candor in the AP's news summary underscores a recurring theme of the Trump era: he is very bad at presidenting. Trump "blindsided" the Republicans, the newswire said. "At the same time, he has blocked them from confirming one of his own nominees, asked them to fund parts of his White House ballroom project despite opposition and forced them to defend his Iran war even as they question the strategy and endgame. By rejecting a public bill signing, Trump is also indicating a level of indifference to the affordability issues that are a leading concern for voters going into November’s midterm elections" (my italics).

Weakness is the flipside of indifference. If he doesn't like the bill on the merits, he should veto it. But he won't because he doesn't care about the merits, and he doesn't care about them, because he doesn't care about anything but himself. "Nobody gives a shit about housing," he reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, according to Punchbowl News, as if the Congress did not have enough votes to force him to face the truth of his nakedness.

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Weakness can also be seen in the fact that Trump had signaled support for the housing bill as recently as yesterday. It was only this morning that the Republicans sleep-walked into the president's reversal. "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," he said via social media. Perhaps his tantrum was the result of getting advanced word of today's court ruling that "permanently barred" him from pursuing an executive order that requires proof of citizenship to vote. The judge said elections are run by the states. The order violates the separation of powers. It seems Trump believes that if he can't get what he wants from a judge, he can do what he's always done and bully the GOP.

Keep your eyes peeled on the GOP's reaction. Are the Republicans going to keep eating humiliation as the price of power or will they start seeing it as a price too great to bear. I don't want to make too much of that, but at the same time, I don't think there's a clear answer yet. The humiliation is indisputable. French Hill, the GOP sponsor of the housing bill in the House, was literally on stage bragging about the president's support, not knowing that he had posted his notice revoking it. "Let's show the American people what legislating looks like," Hill said. "Let's show the American people how you bring together and do something on an bicameral basis. We did that in conjunction with the president and his priorities."

Whoops.

"He’s having a fucking tantrum,” a senior Republican told NOTUS.

Some would say that the Republicans' appetite for humiliation is virtually unlimited, and I am sympathetic to that view. But even now, we can see in the Senate, where the Republicans really, really do not want to nix the filibuster, for fear of what the Democrats might do if they take the chamber in November, a tension that's growing between Republicans who are imagining life without Trump, and a president who can't imagine anything, much less his own party, existing without him. In the months ahead, we're going to see whether Trump is "tightening his grip on the party" or sabotaging it. With this vote, they proved without meaning to that they can succeed without him. If the price isn't high, they might try again.

The Republicans are stuck between voters demanding that Congress act on the cost of living, and a leader believing that "nobody gives a shit about housing" and any other affordability issue. If the Republicans win, Trump will hate them, because that would mean they don't need him anymore. He will punish them for it. But if they lose, Trump will hate them even more, because that would mean they can't do anything for him. He will punish them for that, too. 2026 is shaping up to be, as Roger Stone might put it, the GOP's time in the barrel.

May it be so.

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