By admin 
President Donald Trump is a familiar legislative arsonist. He’ll often throw curveballs at the last minute that give congressional leaders fits — especially in his own party.
But rarely has one of Trump’s late curveballs seemed as ill-advised as the one he threw Wednesday morning.
He suddenly canceled his planned signing of a housing affordability bill that had passed in both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.
And he added a new twist, saying he wouldn’t sign it until Congress passed the “SAVE America Act.” Some Republicans have cast that election-related legislation as existential, but it doesn’t appear to have any viable path forward.
And Trump didn’t just change his mind; he did so even as the festivities celebrating the housing bill signing had begun. Prominent Republicans were at a press conference espousing the virtues of the bill and touting Trump’s support for it just as he pulled back.
A day earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had called the bill “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history.” Hours earlier, Trump’s political adviser for the midterms called it a “signature commitment.”
So just to recap: As of Wednesday, Trump was holding hostage “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation” ever, using it as leverage for a bill he really wants.
That seems like a very bad idea less than five months before November’s elections.
In fact, Trump’s and the GOP’s biggest political problems remain inflation, affordability and the economy, and his gambit seems almost tailor-made to reinforce those liabilities.
Trump’s bad numbers on affordability and the economy
Trump’s numbers on these issues were bad before the Iran war began in February, and they’ve gotten significantly worse since then.
His disapproval rating on the economy was about two-thirds in the most recent polls from Fox News (68%), CBS News (66%) and AP-NORC (66%).
His disapproval rating on inflation, meanwhile, has hovered even higher — around 70% in polling from CBS (73%), Strength in Numbers-Verasight (71%) and Reuters-Ipsos (69%).
These kinds of numbers are rare. Typically, 7 in 10 Americans don’t tend to agree on much of anything.
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And one of Trump’s biggest problems is not just that people think the economy is bad; it’s that they think he has actively made it worse. Before the war, they viewed him as neglecting the problem. Now they view him as exacerbating it.
A conducted in the days before the war began showed 75% of Americans said the Trump administration had focused “not enough” on lowering prices. A CNN poll a month later showed 65% said Trump had “not gone far enough” in trying to reduce the prices of everyday goods.
By May, CNN polling showed 65% of Americans said Trump’s policies had “worsened economic conditions,” and 77% said the policies had “increased the cost of living” in their communities.
And Trump didn’t just take ownership of an uncertain economy via his global tariffs and the Iran war; he has also seemed almost disdainful of having to deal with affordability issues. He has called the issue a “hoax” and made pretty clear at rallies and elsewhere he’d much rather focus on other things. He keeps making tone-deaf comments that suggest he doesn’t take the issue and Americans’ economic pain seriously.
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All to say, Trump on Wednesday risked furthering a politically damaging narrative. He’s reinforcing his image as a guy who doesn’t really prioritize or even acknowledge Americans’ most important issue.
Americans don’t feel that strongly about the ‘SAVE America Act’
Some Republicans and Trump allies might tell themselves that the “SAVE America Act” is worth this gambit; they’d argue it’s just that important to pass legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other provisions.
But not only is there scant evidence of illegal votes from undocumented migrants and plenty of reason to believe this bill could actually prevent legal votes; this legislation simply isn’t something the American people are clamoring for.
Republicans have pointed to polling that shows Americans overwhelmingly support voter ID and strongly support proof of citizenship to register. And those issues do poll well. A CBS poll in March showed 66% of Americans supported the latter.
But otherwise, Americans don’t feel at all strongly about the “SAVE America Act.”
The same poll showed just 28% of Americans said they supported the legislation formerly known as the “SAVE Act,” while 31% opposed it.
And only 43% thought the legislation would prevent more illegal votes than legal ones.
The folly of Trump’s gambit
Beyond that, it seems unlikely that Trump is even giving himself leverage right now.
Passing the “SAVE America Act” would likely require Senate Republicans to nuke the filibuster and its 60-vote threshold — for this and everything else — which not enough of them want to do and many of them actively oppose.
And while that was improbable before, that’s doubly the case now that Trump has alienated Senate Republicans by ousting two senators in primaries — Texas’ John Cornyn and Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy.
This threat doesn’t change that, and it’s not even a great piece of leverage. Because even if the president doesn’t sign the legislation, it still becomes law after 10 days. To actually stop it, he’d have to veto it.
And if he did that, he’d be risking a possible veto override, which requires two-thirds votes in both chambers. The legislation already passed with 92% of the House voting for it and 94% of the Senate voting for it.
Indeed, those majorities are astounding in this day and age. Congress rarely does anything of substance beyond must-pass legislation, such as keeping the government funded. It’s struggled to even do that lately.
And now that it has done something significant on an issue of major public concern — this is the largest housing affordability bill in a generation — Trump is threatening to blow it all up if he doesn’t get what he wants.
The likeliest outcome here is that the president eventually backs down. He has made similar threats about the “SAVE America Act” before, including once threatening not to sign any more legislation until it passed.
But for now, his tantrum cements a very bad narrative for himself and his fellow Republicans ahead of the midterms.