President Donald Trump on Wednesday cancelled plans to sign bipartisan housing legislation in a fit of pique over Republican senators’ refusal to blow up their chamber’s rules to pass his voter ID bill.
The president had been set to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in a rare Capitol signing ceremony at noon on Wednesday before attending a Senate Republican Steering Committee lunch.
But with less than an hour remaining until he was scheduled to leave the White House, he took to Truth Social to announce that the ceremony was “hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT.”
He added that he considers the voting restrictions legislation to be a “national emergency.”
The abrupt announcement came just an hour after a separate post in which he mocked the housing affordability bill for its’ connection to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren using a racist nickname for the Bay State Democrat and claimed that the bill is “of minor importance compared to lower interest rates” and “pales in comparison” to his pet voting restriction bill.
“That is what Americans, both Dumocrats, Republicans, and everyone else, care about. Get the bad Republicans to approve it or, better yet, Terminate the Filibuster and approve it, AND EVERYTHING ELSE REPUBLICANS HAVE EVER DREAMED OF,” he added.
The White House did not directly respond when The Independent asked if Trump’s announcement indicated his intent to veto the bill, which passed the Senate by an 85-5 margin on Monday and was advanced by a 358-32 vote in the House on Tuesday.
If he vetos the bill, both chambers could easily override the veto based on the margins by which it passed through Congress earlier this week.
But Trump could also do nothing, which would allow the bill to become law after ten working days.
The president’s tantrum is just the latest in a series of eruptions over his demand that Congress pass his desired anti-voting bill, which would impose onerous proof of citizenship requirements on voters seeking to register, ban postal balloting in most cases, and enact federal bans on permitting transgender women to play sports.
Earlier this month, Trump claimed he would not sign legislation to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act unless Congress attached the SAVE America Act to it even though his anti-voting bill does not have enough support to make it through the Senate.
His demands regarding the partisan legislation have become more and more frequent as his and his party’s poll numbers have tanked, with Democrats expected to take control of at least half of Congress after this year’s midterm elections.
