Breaking News
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond

Trump Cancels Signing of Biggest Housing Affordability Bill in Decades

He wants Congress to pass a voter suppression bill instead.

A fatigued Donald Trump, sitting down wearing a blue suit and red tie.
Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/Getty Images
President Donald Trump

President Trump has canceled the signing of the largest housing affordability bill in decades unless Congress passes his voter-suppressing SAVE Act.

“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote on Wednesday.

This is a very last-minute cancellation, as the signing presentation was set to happen Wednesday, an hour after his post.

“So.… Looks like they’re going to have to dissemble this stage here at Statuary Hall in the Capitol,” Scott MacFarlane of Meidas Touch wrote on X. “Trump has cancelled his signing of a housing bill … which truly jams up his fellow Republicans who wanted to campaign on it.”

A tweet from Scott MacFarlane showing a stage set up with American flags and the presidential podium with chairs.

The 21st Century Road to Housing bill, sponsored by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. The legislation aims to make housing easier to build and more affordable by blocking corporate entities from buying up single-family homes, among other methods. Trump, a former slumlord, has also downplayed the significance of this bill.

“The Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren centric housing bill, which is of minor importance compared to lower interest rates, and even FISA, pales in comparison to passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. That is what Americans, both Dumocrats, Republicans, and everyone else, care about,” Trump wrote, shortly before canceling his signing of the bill. “Get the bad Republicans to approve it or, better yet, Terminate the Filibuster and approve it, AND EVERYTHING ELSE REPUBLICANS HAVE EVER DREAMED OF.”

Potentially killing a massive housing bill in the midst of an affordability crisis to make it harder for Democrats to vote is a good example of where Trump’s priorities lie.

This story has been updated.

Trump Says He Ordered DOJ to Target Oil Companies Over High Gas Prices

The president seems surprised that gas prices haven’t magically returned to normal.

Gas station sign showing gas prices starting at $5.49/gallon.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Gas prices in Los Angeles on June 22

The U.S. lifted its naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz last week, but the returning commercial trade has not been a return to normal—and Americans are still feeling it at the gas pump.

In a Truth Social post addressing the discrepancy, Donald Trump announced late Tuesday that he had directed the Department of Justice to investigate oil companies, accusing them of “gouging” customers based on the persisting inflated prices.

“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” Trump posted, just after midnight. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’

“I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!” he added.

While crude oil and gas prices have both fallen since Iran and the U.S. signed a tentative peace deal last week, the drop in gas prices has been relatively minimal. Crude was down over 5 percent between June 18 and June 24, but gas was down by half of that—2.5 percent—in the same period, according to data from the AAA gasoline price tracker.

Trump had promised throughout the war that gas prices would plummet “like a rock” once the violence concluded, but that has clearly not been the case, much to the chagrin of his vulnerable Republican allies in Congress, who will have to rationalize the dampened economy to voters come November. Trump and his team have also promised that Americans could expect lower gas prices than the average from even before the war began—around $2.98 per gallon. At the time of publication, the cost of gas is $3.92 per gallon across the country, though some areas in California, such as San Luis Obispo, are still seeing prices around $5.78 per gallon, according to the AAA tracker.

Over the last month, crude oil prices have dropped by 27 percent while gas prices were down by just 13 percent, reported Yahoo Finance.

Trump Hastily Gets Kash Patel’s Girlfriend to Sing for Freedom 250

Alexis Wilkins will perform on the National Mall after nearly every other artist dropped out.

Alexis Wilkins stands on the right in a black top next to Kash Patel in a blue suit at night, outdoors, with a crowd of people behind them, some holding up phones to capture video.
Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images
FBI Director Kash Patel with singer Alexis Wilkins at the conclusion of the “UFC Freedom 250” event

After multiple artists dropped out of President Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 Independence Day celebrations, the administration has settled on a replacement: FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins.

“What a great honor to be a part of the 250th birthday of this great nation,” Wilkins posted on X Tuesday.

A tweet screenshot with from Alexis Wilkins reading “What a great honor to be a part of the 250th birthday of this great nation” with a graphic containing Wilkins's picture in front of the National Mall giving the June 24th date of her performance there.

The event was supposed to have a series of concerts, with headliners announced in late May. Musicians immediately started dropping out, saying they didn’t know that the event would be politicized.

Now, instead of having performers Martina McBride, Young MC, Milli Vanilli, The Commodores, Morris Day & the Time, and Bret Michaels, the event will feature Wilkins—a country singer with 5,863 monthly listeners on Spotify.

On X, Wilkins fired back at critics questioning her dubious booking, saying, “I was invited to sing this anthem on my own accord, as I have been many other places throughout my career.”

Patel has a track record of inappropriately using government resources in his relationship with Wilkins, including using a SWAT team as her bodyguards and jet-setting in a government plane to go see her. Wilkins denies that she’s gotten special privileges, and is suing MS NOW for defamation alleging that she abused federal resources.

Court Says Trump Can Still Fast-Track Deportations

The government can continue to deport millions of people without court hearings.

A crowd of people holding picket signs reading "Stand with Immigrants," "ICE Out," and "Stop Detention Centers in NC"
Peter Zay/Anadolu/Getty Images
A protest at an ICE detention center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 5

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that President Trump can resume fast-tracking deportations, in a 2–1 ruling. While a lower court struck the program down in August, this ruling allows the Trump administration to deport potentially millions of people without offering them immigration hearings.

Judge Justin R. Walker and Judge Neomi Rao, two Trump appointees, ruled in Trump’s favor, while Judge Robert L. Wilkins, an Obama appointee, dissented. The Trump appointees argued that it was within the executive’s jurisdiction to decide which migrants to fast-track to deportation and that the Department of Homeland Security was not required to inform migrants that they could avoid an accelerated deportation if they could offer proof of residency for at least two years.

“It is not a requirement that the government explain how the individual might prevail,” Walker wrote.

Wilkins noted in his dissent that the expedited removal process was usually reserved for people detained immediately at the U.S. borders, rather than immigrants who’d been in the country for some time.

“A procedure that can result in persons being deported pursuant to the expedited removal statute without even being asked how long they have been in the country might satisfy due process for persons encountered at the border, but it is woefully inadequate for persons encountered in the interior of the country,” Wilkins wrote.

This decision is a victory for the mass deportation agenda animating White House adviser Stephen Miller. The DHS celebrated the ruling, claiming that it had “vindicated” Trump, according to The New York Times.

MAGA Spirals After Pro-Israel Politics Loses Big-Time in NY Election

New York’s Democratic Party is ushering in a brand new era of politics—and that’s freaking out Republicans.

Congressional candidate Claire Valdez, Congressional candidate Brad Lander, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier raise their hands during a Get Out the Vote rally.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
From left: Congressional candidate Claire Valdez, congressional candidate Brad Lander, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier at a Get Out the Vote rally, on June 18

Allies of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept the region’s Democratic House primaries Tuesday evening, the latest example of liberal-minded voters shifting their preferences.

And after Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Claire Valdez won—all of whom have been vocal critics of Israel’s genocide in Gaza—the biggest loser seemed to be MAGA world, which was left befuddled and irate that voters had turned away from candidates espousing the historically pro-Israel party line.

Appearing on Fox News, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller complained that the “Democrat Party has abandoned [centrism] and instead adopted this radical, revolutionary, and in many cases, violent ideology that wants to tear America down, and destroy everything that we know and love, from top to bottom.”

Miller further used the trio’s massive win Tuesday to urge Democrats to vote MAGA in the midterm elections, claiming that progressive politics—which he said involved hating America, God, family, and gender—would be the country’s “death knell.”

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer was similarly disgusted by the political development, insisting that the Big Apple’s mayor is an Islamic militant and that Donald Trump needs to do something about it.

“I remember when Trump, who I love, said Mamdani isn’t a jihadi. I was shocked,” Loomer wrote on X late Tuesday, reacting to the race. “Mamdani is a jihadi and this growing threat of Islamic jihad and pro-Islamic terror candidates getting elected in America is a national crisis. It needs to be addressed by the Trump administration. Tonight should prove it to everyone.”

Meghan McCain, a conservative TV personality and daughter of former Arizona Senator John McCain, also added her two cents, writing directly to Jewish Americans via social media.

“To my beautiful Jewish friends in America. We love you. You are not alone. We are just as freaked out as you are and see with clear eyes exactly what is happening,” McCain wrote.

Lander, one of the three Mamdani-backed candidates who cruised to victory Tuesday night, is Jewish.