Trump shocks GOP, says he won’t sign bipartisan housing bill

[0:00] quote, This is why we can't have nice things, end quote. It's a message I got from an [0:06] exasperated senior Republican congressional aide after President Trump abruptly announced [0:11] he will not sign a bipartisan housing affordability bill that Congress passed [0:16] overwhelmingly yesterday. Here's what the president said, quote, Today's housing news [0:21] conference and signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed [0:27] Save America Act, which I consider to be a national emergency. Now the president really pulled [0:33] the rug out from under Republicans at the very moment GOP leaders were celebrating what they [0:38] thought was about to be a big GOP victory, a presidential signing ceremony. Let's show the [0:46] American people what legislating looks like. Let's show the American people how you bring [0:52] together and do something on a bicameral basis. And we did that and we did that in conjunction [0:57] with President Trump and his priorities. Again, that was at the almost exact same moment [1:04] President Trump posted that he's not signing that very bill that the chairman said shows [1:10] what legislating looks like. Here's House Speaker Mike Johnson at that same press conference [1:15] a few minutes later. In the process of this press conference, President Trump announced [1:20] that he is canceling the bill signing for the housing bill that you all were just talking [1:25] about. Yeah, my reaction is the truth of the matter. I spoke to the president for 20 minutes [1:30] before I went in and gave that rousing speech to the House Republicans this morning. He and [1:35] I've talked about this a lot. He has expressed his the priority and the preference of the Save [1:39] America Act. Johnson claims President Trump told him in that call this morning that he was going [1:45] to cancel the signing. Let's get straight to Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Wow, Manu. Yeah, [1:54] completely blindsiding Republican leaders, particularly here in the Senate. The Senate [1:59] majority of their John Thune had no idea that the president would essentially cancel what was [2:04] expected to be a victory lap. The Republicans have been pleading with the president to focus on [2:09] an affordability agenda and they just passed this bill with massive bipartisan majorities in the House [2:14] in the Senate. They wanted to go and pout their efforts to reduce housing costs. And just moments [2:19] ago, that announcement by the president catching the Republican leaders off guard. I just talked [2:25] to John Thune himself moments ago. I asked him, did the president make a mistake by canceling the [2:30] signing ceremony and making these demands on the Save America Act? He said, I mean, that was his call [2:37] to make. And he went on to tout that housing bill, said it's been worked on for a long time. He called it a [2:42] great piece of legislation. He said it addresses it. It's a quote, an affordability issue. He said, [2:47] quote, I eventually hope he'll find his way to sign it. So expect that to be a big part of the [2:54] discussion that is still expected to happen behind closed doors. Trump has been making this case for [2:58] months for the Senate to pass the so-called Save America Act. But they have tried repeatedly in the [3:04] Senate to do that. And they simply just do not have the votes to pass it. John Thune has made that case [3:09] to the president directly. He has said that publicly. Other Republican senators have said [3:13] that. Trump has come back and said, well, just do away with the filibuster and try to pass it along [3:16] straight party lines. But Thune does not have the votes to get rid of the filibuster. That is a [3:21] second problem that the Senate Republican leader has. Meantime, the Speaker of the House says that [3:25] they may try to roll this into the budget process to pass the Save America Act along straight party [3:31] lines. But here's another problem. Doing that would run afoul, very likely, in the Senate's very strict [3:36] budget rules. So there's really no way to get this bill to the president's desk. And meantime, [3:41] the legislative agenda has been completely stymied. The key surveillance law, the spying powers have [3:47] been turned off. The position for the director of national intelligence is not filled on a permanent [3:52] basis because of the president's demands. So the question here, Dana, is amid this turmoil between [3:57] the Senate GOP and President Trump, will anything change when he meets behind closed doors? Will he [4:02] berate those GOP senators? Will they convince him that his push is not actually going to succeed? [4:08] All big questions in a matter of moments. We'll see what happens behind closed doors, Dana. [4:13] Yeah, and you can see all the activity behind Manu. That is because the president is still expected [4:17] to be up there despite saying he's not going to sign this bill. Manu, thank you so much. Let us know [4:23] if you hear anything else here with a terrific group of reporters. Let me just bottom line this [4:28] because there's so much drama in what happened. But taking a step back, what the president is doing [4:34] is saying, I care so much about this legislation that he wants to be put in place about voting [4:44] to make it harder to vote and having to do with a whole bunch of other restrictions, I should say. [4:52] He thinks it's about cleaning it up, but there are lots of debates on that. He cares so much about [4:57] that, that the number one issue for voters, which is affordability and housing is a huge part of [5:02] that. He's willing to sacrifice that despite a big bipartisan vote. Yeah, I mean, I would just ask [5:09] you to do this. Look at the bipartisan numbers in the House and the Senate that this legislation [5:15] passed with. Overwhelmingly, right? How often does that happen? When do we see both parties [5:22] coming together to address a major concern of voters and actually pass something? [5:27] Yesterday on the show, we talked about it. We talked about it. We said it's breaking news. [5:30] Yeah, exactly. We're putting up some of the specifics. [5:33] So like this, this doesn't happen anymore in our politics. There is nobody you talk to that I've [5:38] talked to on the Republican side or Democratic side that just didn't see this as a huge win [5:42] for all these members to go out and sell on the campaign trail. And you are right. Donald Trump [5:47] is saying you don't get that win to go sell this on the campaign trail, at least not yet, [5:51] until I get to hammer away at this bill that I keep being told I don't have the votes to actually [5:57] pass. And on that bill, the Save America Act. This is one example of a Republican who's in a tough [6:04] race, Senator John Husted. He is from Ohio. And he said to CNN today, the Save America Act is very [6:12] important. I voted for it six times. The Housing Act is also very important. I did my job and I got this [6:19] housing bill passed. And I'm confident that the president will sign the bill eventually. [6:22] We'll just continue to work with him to get that done. Well, the blindsiding just doesn't [6:27] stop of Senate Republican leaders, because when the president put this announcement out on Truth [6:32] Social, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was speaking on the Senate floor about this very issue, [6:36] getting ready to walk across the Capitol to Statuary Hall for that signing ceremony where everything was [6:42] still set up, the presidential podium, the desk where he signs legislation, and then the rug was pulled out [6:46] from under them. Once again, this happened, of course, with the Jay Clayton nomination for [6:51] Director of National Intelligence. And Senate Republican leaders were already going into this [6:55] meeting today with Donald Trump. Pretty nervous about it, to be honest with you, because they [7:00] expected a berating from President Trump. They didn't know which of their members would be would [7:05] have have enough courage to speak up and essentially say, Mr. President, not only does your push not have [7:10] the votes, but it's undermining us politically. And I want to underscore a message that I got from a [7:15] senior Senate Republican aide here, who said, quote, never in my lifetime have I seen a president [7:19] so deliberately attempt to lose majorities for his own party. That's how they feel about this right [7:25] now. Yeah, I mean, President Trump is clearly very frustrated with the Senate. We reported that [7:30] last week. One person close with both President Trump and John Thune described it as, we take two [7:36] steps forward, but then keep having to check to see if there are any landmines around. This is very [7:42] clearly a landmine. When you talk to White House officials, they say that President Trump's main [7:46] priorities are the Save America Act, getting rid of the Senate parliamentarian, who he feels is in the way of [7:53] getting past some of these big bills that he wants to do in that blue slip process when it comes to judges. [7:58] Nowhere in those three things I listed is this housing bill. And so I think you're seeing the president [8:02] say any kind of affordability or any kind of affordability. Obviously, the one thing that voters are [8:06] worried about. And so I think you're seeing the president say, I'm going to twist the knife to try to get [8:11] something that I want. And you're seeing Republicans say, we don't have it. And I don't know how that [8:16] exactly ends with unless one of them basically backs down. And I don't think you're going to see [8:21] President Trump do that immediately. And if you just sort of put a finer point on the bipartisanship, [8:26] we had the big vote. But the lead sponsors of this were Tim Scott, who actually bumped into on Capitol [8:32] Hill yesterday, and he was over the moon, understandably so, because they got such a big vote. [8:37] And they said he said that they had other bits of bipartisan legislation on the economy coming. [8:44] And Elizabeth Warren. So Tim Scott, Elizabeth Warren. Listen to what Elizabeth Warren said [8:50] about this presidential move. [8:52] It's a complete indifference to the cost squeeze on American families and to genuine efforts to do [9:02] something about it. You know, he could be over here trying to claim a victory lap. And instead, [9:08] he's saying, no, no, he doesn't want anything to do with it. [9:11] I'm not sure who President Trump thinks he's screwing in this. Or, you know, like, who does he [9:20] think, like, he is needling in a way that is going to produce a result that he wants? He tried this on [9:26] the SAVE Act with the Texas Senate endorsement. Remember the whole scheme that Ken Paxton was [9:32] like, hey, I'll bow out of this. I'll make the Republican establishment nightmares go away. [9:37] Cornyn will be, as long as you pass the SAVE Act, get rid of the filibuster. And again, [9:41] the math isn't there. And I just don't, what I don't understand is from Donald Trump's point of [9:46] view, I get the priority nature of the SAVE America Act. And I know he believes that is going [9:52] to help maintain majorities for him. Because it changed the way people vote. Because it will [9:56] change the way people vote. But where it changes who can vote. And by the way, I'm not sure he's [10:00] right about that. I'm not sure that he's right about that. But I'm just saying that that's his [10:04] thinking. But I don't understand how he doesn't see this getting in his ultimate own way. Right. I [10:11] mean, you know this because you cover him every day. Also, the answer is because he is so sure of the [10:18] power that he has a persuasion, that he feels that he can make this work. And clearly nobody [10:25] can convince him otherwise, despite the facts and the numbers that you just described.