‘Affordability? What Are You Talking About?’
It would be difficult to miss President Trump’s remarks this week about what a “yawn” fest the bipartisan housing bill that is sitting on his desk is — the one that Republicans members of Congress are begging him to sign so they have something to campaign on for the midterms.
The bill — which may be the only bipartisan success story of his second term — is the single largest overhaul of federal housing policy passed through Congress in decades, designed to encourage new construction by removing restrictions, making it cheaper and easier to build across the country. It includes no new spending, speeds up environmental reviews for new construction and, the sexiest part of the bill that Trump himself has touted, places limits on how many single-family homes private equity firms can snatch up.
It won’t solve the housing crisis in America — home prices have increased by more than 50% since the COVID-19 pandemic — but it would give Republicans and Democrats alike something to point to on the campaign trail to show they’re listening to Americans’ affordability concerns, even while Trump’s tariffs and war make everything else more expensive.
But Trump won’t sign it. He’s been holding it hostage to try to get Senate Republicans to pass legislation that will not pass the upper chamber; legislation that would disenfranchise millions ahead of the midterms and fuel Trump’s delusions about the 2020 election.
“It hasn’t been sent to me yet. It’s coming, I understand, and then I’ll make the determine — Look, here’s what I’d like to say,” he said of the housing bill on Monday. “Much more than a bill that — big deal. It’s a yawn … somebody would say, ‘it’s wonderful.’ To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a Big Yawn.”
But it’s not just wildly off-message statements about the housing bill. Trump has made his real feelings about Americans’ financial struggles pretty clear in recent weeks. He’s called “affordability” a “hoax,” confessed he wants to “drive housing prices up” for some reason, declared to reporters “I love inflation” and made it clear that he does not think about Americans’ financial concerns when he has Iran to attack, an extremely unpopular war that he started.
“The only thing that matters, when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
His right-hand man, VP JD Vance, has been killing it in the messaging department as well. In a recent interview with Fox News, Vance accused Democrats of doing nothing to address the nation’s affordability issues.
“I would love it if Democrats were willing — not that they are gonna agree with Republicans all the time — but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better, you know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise,” he said.
I’ll state for the record, again, Democrats and Republicans voted to pass the housing bill that everyone is waiting on Trump to sign.
It’s a stunning message for the administration to send at a time when congressional Republicans are looking for ways to bolster their chances of maintaining control of Congress in the fall. But Republicans themselves are not doing a great job of appearing anything other than patently?? tone deaf?? on the issue of affordability.
Here’s Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) today, refusing to answer a reporters questions on affordability and bragging about the lobster tails and steak he’s gonna eat back home in Texas, while defending Trump’s war in Iran and downplaying skyrocketing energy costs as Americans head into a holiday weekend with a brutal heat wave on the horizon.
Reporter: “Do you think the 60% of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck can afford lobster tails and ribeyes and all of that?”
Nehls: “Maybe not, maybe the 60% of America don’t work as hard as I do either, I mean, I don’t know.”
If you’re moved to dismiss voters in favor of lobster dinners, don’t let us stand in your way.
The campaign messaging could not be simpler for Democrats. At least one person who runs the DNC’s Twitter account gets it.
The Republican affordability plan: https://t.co/OyQRq9tvar pic.twitter.com/9gGptii6HO
— Democrats (@TheDemocrats) July 1, 2026
A Sign of GOP Desperation in Texas
Trump announced yesterday that the Republican National Committee will host its first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, Texas in September to rally voters ahead of a crucial Senate race for Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) seat. The Republican Party is reportedly nervous about GOP-nominee Ken Paxton’s baggage; he is, of course, up against the charismatic Democrat and theologian James Talarico. Trump is the one who got them into this mess in the first place when he chose to endorse Paxton instead of the incumbent to somehow bully Republican leadership into finding a way to pass the SAVE America Act in the Senate.
RNC Chair Joe Gruters told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the event will be Trump-centric, a “Trumpapalooza,” if you will, that he predicts the RNC will knock “out of the park.”
“It gives us a chance to highlight all the wonderful things this president has done in our effort on this great American comeback to highlight the ideas, policies and people that’s making it happen,” Gruters told Fox.
The desperation is palpable both in the scheduling of such an event and as the party tries to make the race, which is objectively not about Trump, about Trump.
The Scramble to Keep Trump From Flying Off the Handle Over SCOTUS Birthright Citizenship Ruling
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling upholding birthright citizenship and overturning Trump’s executive order — which sought to deny birthright citizenship to children born on U.S. soil who do not have at least one parent with citizenship or permanent legal status — Republicans in Congress and members of Trump’s administration scrambled to show Trump that something will be done about this. The Justice Department was no different. Per Reuters:
The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday directed federal prosecutors to prioritize investigations of so-called birth tourism schemes after the Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship in the United States.
A senior Justice Department official, Colin McDonald, told employees in a memo that people who come to the United States under “false pretenses” to give birth and secure citizenship for their child could be criminally charged under laws barring visa fraud, money laundering, identity theft and wire fraud.
Great Stuff to Read From TPM Today
Kate Riga sifts through the MAGA menty b after the Supreme Court did not side with Trump’s attempts to negate the Constitution on birthright citizenship, ranked by levels of grotesque delusion.
In today’s Morning Memo, Sarah Posner walks us through the Christian right’s reaction to the Supreme Court’s anti-trans rulings on Tuesday. Spoiler: after the fall of Roe, marriage equality was always next on the docket.
Come hang out with TPM’s NYC team in Brooklyn later this month!
Click: PHOTOS: Behold the Assorted Weirdness and Sparse Crowds at Trump’s Great American State Fair
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Johnson Follows Kavanaugh’s Lead, Says Congress Will ‘Deal With’ Birthright Citizenship
What I’m Reading
DOGE Cut Off Small Town America’s 250th Birthday Money
Trump Remakes Washington, D.C., Into a Maze of Fences and Guard Members
I am sure it will be epic… and if those wusses on the supreme court can’t handle it they should quit.
A president taking a fall trip to Dallas to shore things up in the state of Texas?
What could possibly go wrong?