# Trump is Protesting His Own Party

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 9 Jul 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/c802470a-1ef2-4afc-820d-b482015e357c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

Maine Democrat Graham Platner’s withdrawal from his US Senate race is ratcheting up an already intense run-up to the US midterm elections. And yet, across the political spectrum, lawmakers in Washington agree that they need to deliver — quickly — on promises of affordability. With broad bipartisan support, they passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, billed as allowing more Americans to achieve the dream of home ownership. But the bill’s fate has been thrown into doubt by President Trump, who surprised lawmakers by declining to sign it. On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg housing policy reporter Katy O’Donnell and Megan Scully, who leads Bloomberg’s Congressional coverage, join Sarah Holder to discuss what’s in the housing bill, how Trump could still steer its fate and what his intervention could mean for Republicans in the midterms. Read more: • Would Congress’ New Housing Bill Lower Home Prices? • Trump, GOP Clash After President Scraps Housing Bill Signing We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Sarah Holder; Produced by Rachael Lewis-Krisky; Reported by Katy O’Donnell and Megan Scully; Edited by Jeffrey Grocott. Fact-checking by David Fox and Victor Swezy; Engineering by Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Congress recently came together across party lines to pass a
[0:12] Speaker 2: bill tackling one of the country's most pervasive and politically
[0:16] Speaker 2: salient issues, housing affordability.
[0:20] Speaker 3: It's an issue that's been almost twenty years in the making.
[0:23] Speaker 2: The legislation is called the twenty first Century Road to
[0:26] Speaker 2: Housing Act, and it's mostly focused on addressing the nation's
[0:30] Speaker 2: housing shortage.
[0:31] Speaker 3: Construction rates created after the global financial crisis and they
[0:35] Speaker 3: haven't really recovered.
[0:37] Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg Housing policy reporter Katie O'Donnell.
[0:40] Speaker 3: So the bill is designed to address that by boosting
[0:44] Speaker 3: the supply of new homes as a way of bringing
[0:47] Speaker 3: down prices by kind of increasing supply to meet demand.
[0:50] Speaker 2: The legislation had early support from President Trump and overwhelmingly
[0:55] Speaker 2: passed the House and the Senate. What was so unifying about.
[0:59] Speaker 1: This issue the midterm elections and the focus on affordability
[1:03] Speaker 1: and growing frustration among voters that neither party is doing
[1:08] Speaker 1: enough to bring down prices.
[1:10] Speaker 2: That's Megan Scully, who leads the Bloomberg team covering Congress.
[1:13] Speaker 1: There was a recognition that this is not sort of
[1:16] Speaker 1: a cure all for housing prices. Nor is it a
[1:19] Speaker 1: cure all for the broader economic concerns voter's face. But
[1:22] Speaker 1: it was a good faith effort. Why hasn't it officially
[1:26] Speaker 1: passed yet? Then there's one reason, and that is Donald Trump.
[1:32] Speaker 1: He announced that he would not be signing the piece
[1:34] Speaker 1: of legislation. He wanted to basically hold it hostage for
[1:39] Speaker 1: the Save America Act, a voter identification bill that he
[1:43] Speaker 1: has said is his top priority ahead of the midterm elections.
[1:47] Speaker 1: Somebody was wonderful to me Compared to the Save America Act,
[1:54] Speaker 1: just about everything is a big yawn.
[2:00] Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
[2:02] Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. By twelve am Saturday morning, a major bipartisan
[2:07] Speaker 2: housing bill could become law or fall to a presidential veto.
[2:12] Speaker 2: Today on the show, Bloomberg's Megan Scully and Katie O'Donnell
[2:16] Speaker 2: on the housing legislation's strengths and limitations, Trump's calculus behind
[2:20] Speaker 2: holding it up, and how the saga could complicate Republican
[2:24] Speaker 2: messaging for the midterms. Katie, this bipartisan housing package had
[2:36] Speaker 2: a long journey to get where it is today. That's
[2:38] Speaker 2: the product of a lot of back and forth between
[2:40] Speaker 2: the House and the Senate over the past year plus,
[2:43] Speaker 2: and in its final form it has sixty provisions. Denische
[2:48] Speaker 2: from the Bipartisan Policy Center told you and your colleague
[2:51] Speaker 2: it marked a paradigm shift in housing policy. Why do
[2:56] Speaker 2: experts see this housing package as such a paradigm shift.
[3:00] Speaker 3: Everyone agrees that a supply shortage is at faultier, which
[3:04] Speaker 3: is a new thing that's not always been the case.
[3:06] Speaker 3: There's been a lot of movements to, for instance, subsidized demand,
[3:10] Speaker 3: and when you have constricted supply, subsidizing demand makes prices
[3:14] Speaker 3: go up. So the fact that everyone could kind of
[3:16] Speaker 3: agree on the root cause was seen as this big moment.
[3:20] Speaker 3: There are a few provisions people are really excited about, though.
[3:23] Speaker 3: There's one that would remove the permanent chassis requirement for
[3:26] Speaker 3: manufactured housing. So that removes this requirement that this big
[3:30] Speaker 3: steel frame plate that is used to transport manufactured homes
[3:35] Speaker 3: under current regulations that must stay there even though most
[3:38] Speaker 3: of these homes, like ninety percent of these homes don't
[3:40] Speaker 3: move once they're cited. That is expected to save consumers
[3:44] Speaker 3: some ten thousand dollars, but also to make it easier
[3:47] Speaker 3: to put manufactured housing in localities that have various restrictions
[3:51] Speaker 3: about cladding and the way it looks.
[3:55] Speaker 2: Another piece of this legislation tackles an issue Trump himself
[3:59] Speaker 2: has elevated.
[4:00] Speaker 1: America will not become a nation of renters.
[4:03] Speaker 3: We're not.
[4:04] Speaker 2: In January at the World Economic Forum, Trump said that
[4:07] Speaker 2: the dream of buying a home was out of reach
[4:10] Speaker 2: for too many Americas.
[4:11] Speaker 1: That's why I have signed and executive order banning large
[4:15] Speaker 1: institutional investors from buying single family homes. It's just not
[4:18] Speaker 1: fair to the public.
[4:19] Speaker 2: One of the major sticking points in this reform package
[4:23] Speaker 2: as it was being drafted involved the role that institutional
[4:25] Speaker 2: investors like private equity firms have played in this housing
[4:29] Speaker 2: affordability squeeze. There were debates over how exactly Congress should
[4:33] Speaker 2: regulate Wall Street's ownership of single family homes, especially where
[4:37] Speaker 2: exactly did lawmakers land.
[4:40] Speaker 3: It's interesting it was something that largely was negotiated by
[4:44] Speaker 3: the White House with Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat
[4:47] Speaker 3: on the Senate Banking Committee. It was critical for the
[4:50] Speaker 3: White House, and it was something that Democrats have been
[4:52] Speaker 3: behind in the past. But interestingly, you know, as a
[4:56] Speaker 3: Senator JD. Vance had supported a bill to kind of
[4:59] Speaker 3: kick walls rate out of the housing market. So the
[5:02] Speaker 3: way this bill defines those investors as institutions with three
[5:05] Speaker 3: hundred and fifty single properties or more, I should say.
[5:07] Speaker 3: What's interesting about this, though, is that those investors only
[5:11] Speaker 3: own like two percent of the single family rental stock
[5:14] Speaker 3: and something like zero point five percent of overall single
[5:18] Speaker 3: family housing stock in the country. So just numerically, it's
[5:22] Speaker 3: not going to have a huge impact on housing prices
[5:25] Speaker 3: just because they're not actually a huge player here. It's
[5:28] Speaker 3: an easy thing for people to kind of scapecoat, but
[5:32] Speaker 3: most analysts would agree that that's not what's driving up
[5:34] Speaker 3: housing prices.
[5:36] Speaker 2: I'm wondering how this legislation addresses local roadblocks to housing production,
[5:43] Speaker 2: because there's a lot that the federal government can do,
[5:45] Speaker 2: but a lot of the things blocking supply end up
[5:49] Speaker 2: being these zoning restrictions that cities and municipalities in forests, right, Katie.
[5:54] Speaker 3: Absolutely, So, most of the determinants of home price sort
[5:59] Speaker 3: of growth are determined at the local level. You have
[6:03] Speaker 3: environmental reviews, which this bill would sort of streamline at
[6:06] Speaker 3: the federal level. It's kind of been this interesting thing
[6:09] Speaker 3: to watch Washington try and deal with the housing affordability
[6:13] Speaker 3: crisis because they are so limited. But this bill basically
[6:17] Speaker 3: takes a carrot approach rather than a stick approach. So
[6:20] Speaker 3: it encourages localities to reduce restrictive zoning to reduce barriers
[6:24] Speaker 3: to construction. It would establish these pre approved home design
[6:29] Speaker 3: plans that could sort of speed up various permitting processes
[6:33] Speaker 3: in theory, you know, it doesn't do anything like, say,
[6:36] Speaker 3: tie federal highway dollars to removing zoning barriers. It's very like,
[6:41] Speaker 3: here's a competitive grant program, here's an encouragement on how
[6:45] Speaker 3: to do this. Here are some ways you could do this,
[6:48] Speaker 3: but it's not punishing localities that don't do it now.
[6:52] Speaker 2: Building housing takes time. Some of the potential effects from
[6:55] Speaker 2: this bill would take years to be felt in a
[6:58] Speaker 2: real way by renters, home sellers, home buyers. But where
[7:03] Speaker 2: might we see the most immediate effects from this housing
[7:06] Speaker 2: bill if it ultimately becomes law.
[7:09] Speaker 3: I think the hope is that it will encourage the
[7:13] Speaker 3: proliferation of factory bilt housing. It has the manufactured housing
[7:17] Speaker 3: chassis requirement that I mentioned. It would establish HUD as
[7:20] Speaker 3: the regulator of modular housing, which is very similar, but
[7:23] Speaker 3: it's sort of the prefab elements that are put together
[7:27] Speaker 3: in a factory, but then they're assembled on site. They're
[7:29] Speaker 3: not transported to the site as a house that hope
[7:32] Speaker 3: may be like a little pollyanna ish to be honest,
[7:35] Speaker 3: because manufactured housing still has kind of a branding problem
[7:39] Speaker 3: for lack of a better word, Like people think of
[7:42] Speaker 3: trailer parks and they zone against it. It's interesting even
[7:45] Speaker 3: though like young people in gen Z are growing more
[7:48] Speaker 3: amenable to manufactured housing. They're seeing that it can be
[7:52] Speaker 3: very different from the manufactured housing of the sixties and
[7:54] Speaker 3: seventies that you think of as like the double wide,
[7:56] Speaker 3: et cetera. They had a manufactured housing advocate tell me that, like,
[8:00] Speaker 3: but the planning commissions are still gen X and boomers on, Like,
[8:02] Speaker 3: those are the people we need to convince. And so
[8:05] Speaker 3: even though this would sort of reduce prices for manufactured
[8:07] Speaker 3: housing and allow it to be built more places in theory,
[8:10] Speaker 3: you still have to get people to want it to
[8:12] Speaker 3: be built. This is definitely like a bill that's sort
[8:15] Speaker 3: of long term, not short term.
[8:18] Speaker 2: The Bipartisan Road to Housing Act, headed for Trump's desk
[8:22] Speaker 2: seemingly a slam dunk for lawmakers. So how did things
[8:26] Speaker 2: go wrong. I'll be back with Housing reporter Katie O'Donnell
[8:29] Speaker 2: and Congress editor Megan Scully after the break. So, Meghan,
[8:42] Speaker 2: this bill was baked. I was ready to go after
[8:44] Speaker 2: lots of debate, Congress was aligned, and on June twenty third,
[8:47] Speaker 2: the House passed it three hundred and fifty eight to
[8:50] Speaker 2: thirty two. What happened when the bill was sent to
[8:54] Speaker 2: Trump's desk.
[8:55] Speaker 4: What happened, essentially was Trump changed his mind.
[8:58] Speaker 1: We were expecting him to this bill in a public
[9:02] Speaker 1: ceremony with House lawmakers and others who had supported the legislation,
[9:08] Speaker 1: and cameras were set and they were ready to go,
[9:12] Speaker 1: and he posted on truth social that he would not
[9:16] Speaker 1: be signing the bill because he wanted this Save America Act,
[9:21] Speaker 1: this voter id legislation that Democrats oppose and has pretty
[9:26] Speaker 1: much no chance of passing the Senate. He wanted that
[9:30] Speaker 1: before he would sign this Housing bill. In the interim,
[9:33] Speaker 1: he has said it's not so important that the Save
[9:37] Speaker 1: America Act is more important. Of course, one doesn't have
[9:40] Speaker 1: anything to do really with the other, aside from he
[9:43] Speaker 1: can use the Housing bill as leverage over lawmakers to
[9:47] Speaker 1: try to get something on voter identification. You know, with
[9:52] Speaker 1: the midterms four months away, this has become sort of
[9:55] Speaker 1: an all consuming topic for.
[9:58] Speaker 3: Trump when he's been and sort of minimizing the importance.
[10:01] Speaker 3: He has also denigrated the bill and the idea of
[10:04] Speaker 3: the bill, which I think is even more kind of
[10:07] Speaker 3: unsettling to the bill's co sponsors who have been working
[10:10] Speaker 3: with the White House. Like he has expressed ambivalence about
[10:13] Speaker 3: home prices coming down because that would hurt equity that
[10:16] Speaker 3: existing homeowners have built in their homes. He has said
[10:19] Speaker 3: interest rates are the main thing here, but there's no
[10:22] Speaker 3: indication interest rates are going to come down. So the
[10:24] Speaker 3: thinking is that he ultimately will sign this for that
[10:27] Speaker 3: it will just become law without him signing it.
[10:30] Speaker 2: And how did Republicans react when Trump did not immediately
[10:37] Speaker 2: sign this bill that they had worked so hard alongside
[10:40] Speaker 2: Democrats to get to the finish line again.
[10:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a rather uncomfortable moment on Capitol Hill.
[10:47] Speaker 1: You had essentially the Speaker of the House trying to
[10:51] Speaker 1: explain Trump's actions, and then you had the Senate John
[10:55] Speaker 1: Thune had been a big advocate for this legislation and
[10:59] Speaker 1: Trump essentially pulled the rug out from under him and
[11:02] Speaker 1: then he still came up to the hill to have lunch.
[11:06] Speaker 1: The lunch itself was somewhat fraught because of other issues
[11:10] Speaker 1: regarding the Iran War, regarding candidates that Trump had backed
[11:14] Speaker 1: for the midterms. So the whole lunch was going to
[11:17] Speaker 1: be tense already, and then you sort of threw this
[11:20] Speaker 1: bomb on top of it.
[11:21] Speaker 2: So the reason that Trump has not yet signed the
[11:25] Speaker 2: Road to Housing Act was because he wanted action on
[11:29] Speaker 2: his Save Act. Tell me a little bit about the
[11:31] Speaker 2: Save Act, Megan, What would it do, who would it impact,
[11:34] Speaker 2: and why is passing it such a priority for Trump?
[11:37] Speaker 1: So the Save America Act is probably the most expansive
[11:42] Speaker 1: piece of voter identification legislation that has been produced in
[11:47] Speaker 1: recent memory. And while in theory voter id is widely accepted,
[11:53] Speaker 1: you know, I believe Poles have it at north of
[11:56] Speaker 1: eighty percent voters approve of it, in practice, there are
[12:01] Speaker 1: concerns among Democrats that this could really disenfranchise voters.
[12:08] Speaker 2: Advocacy organizations opposed to this bill have pointed out that
[12:12] Speaker 2: those voters could include women who change their last names
[12:15] Speaker 2: when they get married, transgender people whose legal names don't
[12:19] Speaker 2: match the ones on their birth certificates tribal citizens whose
[12:22] Speaker 2: tribal ideas don't list a place of birth, and oversees
[12:26] Speaker 2: military members who can't provide in person documentation to register
[12:31] Speaker 2: for mail in voting.
[12:33] Speaker 1: Somewhere in the realm of twenty two million Americans could
[12:36] Speaker 1: be disenfranchised with this piece of legislation. Trump has pushed
[12:42] Speaker 1: for this. It feeds into the false narrative that he
[12:45] Speaker 1: has put forth without any evidence that non citizens are
[12:49] Speaker 1: voting in US elections. There is no indication that that
[12:53] Speaker 1: is happening in any large numbers, but Trump has continued
[12:58] Speaker 1: to beat this drum.
[12:59] Speaker 2: It seems like a risky political move stalling on signing
[13:03] Speaker 2: this popular bipartisan housing bill, which is a big issue
[13:06] Speaker 2: for voters heading into the midterms, while pushing this potentially
[13:11] Speaker 2: less popular voting restriction bill. Walk me through that calculus.
[13:18] Speaker 1: As is always the case with Trump, a lot of
[13:20] Speaker 1: this is in the show right.
[13:22] Speaker 4: He was able to produce.
[13:23] Speaker 1: This very dramatic moment on the Hill, and he was
[13:26] Speaker 1: able to really try to hold his Republican senator's feet
[13:31] Speaker 1: to the fire on this. The only way that this
[13:35] Speaker 1: voter identification legislation could pass the Senate, and it's not
[13:38] Speaker 1: even clear this could pass the Senate if this were
[13:41] Speaker 1: to happen, but would be to do away with the filibuster.
[13:46] Speaker 1: The filibuster is essentially what gives the minority in the
[13:49] Speaker 1: Senate power over the majority, and Senate Republicans know that
[13:54] Speaker 1: doing away with this essential roadblock would would take away
[13:59] Speaker 1: their power should they lose or when they lose the
[14:01] Speaker 1: majority at some point. The only legislation that can get
[14:05] Speaker 1: through the Senate that is not subject to a filibuster
[14:10] Speaker 1: are things like the budget build This would not fall
[14:13] Speaker 1: under that bucket, though it is not budgetary in nature
[14:17] Speaker 1: and would be rejected. So this is essentially a power
[14:21] Speaker 1: play on his part.
[14:22] Speaker 2: So Megan, does this power play change Republicans' position heading
[14:28] Speaker 2: into the midterms to have the President on the record
[14:30] Speaker 2: saying housing affordability legislation quote pales in comparison to the
[14:34] Speaker 2: Save America Act when housing affordability is such a big
[14:38] Speaker 2: issue for voters.
[14:40] Speaker 1: Absolutely. You know, Republicans have been trying to unify around
[14:44] Speaker 1: a message of affordability, and they've been trying to get
[14:47] Speaker 1: Trump to stick with this message of affordability. Without that,
[14:53] Speaker 1: and certainly with Trump denigrating it, it undercuts their arguments
[14:58] Speaker 1: and makes it that much more more difficult to present
[15:01] Speaker 1: this case to voters.
[15:03] Speaker 2: And ultimately, Katie Trump's signature could be symbolic. Right, as
[15:07] Speaker 2: long as he does veto this legislation, the Road to
[15:09] Speaker 2: Housing bill will become law ten days after the bill
[15:12] Speaker 2: was originally presented to him, excluding Sundays.
[15:15] Speaker 4: That's Friday, right.
[15:17] Speaker 3: That's eleven fifty nine pm on Friday, slash. It technically
[15:20] Speaker 3: becomes law midnight Saturday morning, and so he can sign
[15:24] Speaker 3: it up until eleven fifty nine.
[15:26] Speaker 1: Basically, I just wanted to add too, like until that time,
[15:30] Speaker 1: until that deadline approaches, he could veto.
[15:33] Speaker 2: It, And do you think that's going to happen? Might
[15:36] Speaker 2: he veto it?
[15:37] Speaker 1: I have long since stopped trying to project what may
[15:41] Speaker 1: or may not happen in a Trump administration.
[15:44] Speaker 4: But it's certainly a threat.
[15:46] Speaker 1: It can loom large over the bigger debate, whether it's
[15:49] Speaker 1: on Save America or whether it's on the.
[15:52] Speaker 4: Iran war or or whatever the topic.
[15:56] Speaker 1: Dujoor is, so he can sort of lord this over
[15:59] Speaker 1: report publicans, forcing them then into a point of do
[16:03] Speaker 1: they hold a vote to override a veto? And they
[16:05] Speaker 1: probably do have the votes to do that, but that
[16:08] Speaker 1: just presents a clash with the administration and further presents
[16:13] Speaker 1: the Republican Party as being in disarray.
[16:17] Speaker 2: So say he ultimately does sign it, or this bill
[16:20] Speaker 2: ultimately passes. What does this whole saga tell you about
[16:24] Speaker 2: the state of US politics right now and where housing
[16:27] Speaker 2: policy fits it.
[16:29] Speaker 3: If you are an existing homeowner and you're not trying
[16:31] Speaker 3: to sell right now, things are great, And if you're
[16:35] Speaker 3: a renter, rent is falling off. It had risen a lot,
[16:39] Speaker 3: it's coming down. If you want to buy and you
[16:41] Speaker 3: just can't because prices are too high and mortgage rates
[16:44] Speaker 3: are too high, which mortgage rates have gotten higher because
[16:47] Speaker 3: of the Iran War, then you're incredibly frustrated. Right. People
[16:52] Speaker 3: have different experiences of the housing market, and that's always
[16:56] Speaker 3: been sort of the question about housing is it's not
[16:59] Speaker 3: like a clue your you know, if homeowners like a policy,
[17:03] Speaker 3: homeowners are more likely to vote than renners, right, And
[17:06] Speaker 3: so there's always been this balancing act of trying to
[17:09] Speaker 3: preserve the existing gains that people are able to feel
[17:12] Speaker 3: in their wealth while at the same time expanding access.
[17:16] Speaker 3: So I think housing policy, I mean it is the
[17:19] Speaker 3: fact that everyone's talking about it is a huge deal.
[17:21] Speaker 3: It's a sign that Washington knows there's a problem. But
[17:25] Speaker 3: in terms of the ways they can fix it, the
[17:27] Speaker 3: ways they're able to fix it, and the ways they
[17:29] Speaker 3: will fix it, it all comes down to details.
[17:38] Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
[17:41] Speaker 2: To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
[17:44] Speaker 2: to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
[17:48] Speaker 2: dot com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode,
[17:51] Speaker 2: make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever
[17:54] Speaker 2: you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show.
[17:58] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.
[18:01] Speaker 4: The

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