Donald Trump refuses to sign bipartisan housing bill, calls for SAVE America Act to be passed first

President Donald Trump announced that he would not sign a bipartisan housing bill unless the SAVE America Act is passed by Congress. The President canceled a planned signing ceremony on Wednesday for the '21st Century ROAD to Housing Act', which aimed to increase housing supply and bring down costs. The bill would have also restricted institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, something that the President had previously identified as a problem for Americans looking to buy homes.

Taking to Truth Social, Trump claimed that passing the SAVE America Act was a matter of national security and that the country desperately needed it. There is still a good chance of the bill becoming a law even if the President does not sign it. If no action is taken by the President regarding a bill that was passed by both houses of Congress within 10 days (excluding Sundays), it would automatically become a law. However, if Congress adjourns before the 10 days are up, the President can choose to do nothing, and the bill dies automatically. 

The SAVE America Act mandates documented proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, making the polling process a lot stricter than it is now. When asked if that legislation was more important than the one that may allow Americans to be able to afford homes, Trump said that the election legislation would prevent communists from coming into the U.S. "Every election is important. We're doing very well. They want a lot of communists to come in. I'm saying it a little bit differently, but the people they're pushing are communists, and this country is not going to have communists," he said.

Earlier, Trump posted on Truth Social that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani played a hand in getting three "communists" elected in the New York primaries. The three Mamdani-backed candidates who won their respective elections were Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Avila Chevalier. The President's decision might have come as a bigger shock to the GOP than Democrats, as they had been touting the housing bill as an important piece of legislature which needed to be passed.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson shared a message on X, in which he underlined the importance of the bill. "This transformational legislation will help address the housing affordability problem, reduce regulations so builders can build, limit institutional investing in the housing market, and bring the American Dream back into reach for millions of young and working families," he wrote. After Trump said that he was going to cancel the signing, Johnson said that the President's priority was the SAVE America Act.

"He has expressed his priority and preference for the SAVE America Act," he said. He also said that he had a 20-minute conversation with President Trump, and that he was already aware that the signing was going to be cancelled. "He decided, and I didn't announce it because I wanted him to announce it. We are delaying this. As you know, he has a window of time before he has to sign a bill. He is going to use a little bit more of that window of time, and we are going to go through this together."