Why Trump turned a housing bill win into a fight over voting restrictions

President Donald Trump loves to slap his name on things: hotels, merchandise, stimulus checks and even a cultural institution Congress named for a former president. But Trump pointedly refused to affix his name to a major housing bill that both houses of Congress recently passed with huge veto-proof margins. The bill became law Saturday without his signature.

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The president declined to sign it because he is still seething over another piece of legislation: his repressive anti-voting bill he calls the Save America Act. Senate Republicans (fortunately) failed to pass that bill, and Trump’s resulting political tantrum is so baffling and self-destructive it beggars belief.

The passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act marks an extraordinarily rare event in today’s Washington: Congress forming a huge bipartisan majority to achieve something genuinely good. The bill, which  addresses the national housing shortage, was the product of a partnership between progressive firebrand Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is a staunch Trump ally. The White House initially backed the bill.

Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, a progressive policy publication, called the bill a “medley of good ideas.” Among other things, it would streamline environmental reviews (without scrapping standards), make the construction of certain kinds of housing units cheaper, offer economic incentives for local governments to support new construction and make it easier for some consumers to get mortgages. It’s the biggest piece of housing legislation in decades 

But just hours before the signing ceremony to sign the housing bill into law, Trump canceled the signing. Monomaniacally fixated on his voter suppression bill, he later called the housing bill “a big yawn.” Then he announced on social media Friday that he would never sign the housing bill — as a symbolic protest.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” he wrote. He also warned that the “non-passage” of the SAVE America Act “is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!”