Trump Gives His Own Party the Middle Finger on Housing Bill

Donald Trump is pitching a fit over a potential bipartisan legislative win in a futile attempt to advance the SAVE America Act.

“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, which is polling at 97 percent with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday morning.

But Trump’s protest is pointless: the Constitution states that bills automatically become law after 10 days if the president neither signs nor vetoes them. The housing affordability measure passed both chambers of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, and Trump has not indicated that he will issue a last-minute veto of the measure. It is currently scheduled to become law at midnight.

The SAVE America Act, on the other hand, sparked nationwide controversy earlier this year, particularly over a detail in the first version of the bill that would have made it more difficult for married women to vote. Backlash over the bill has been so severe that, in the months since Trump insisted it should be Congress’s top priority, dispute over the voter ID bill has gummed up efforts to fund the Department of Homeland Security, stalled attempts to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, and upended Trump’s own cabinet nominations.

The original SAVE America Act suggested numerous amendments to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, including line items that would abolish mail-in voting, require voters to bring proof of citizenship and proof of residency to register to vote, require voter ID, and mandate voter roll purges every 30 days.

But the bill has been radically pared down since then, in large part due to the improbability of passing it in whole. House Speaker Mike Johnson has claimed that the current iteration of the act proposed by the lower chamber preserves the “backbone” of what Trump is pushing to pass in the Senate.

That includes requirements to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote—such as a birth certificate or a U.S. passport (which only half of the population currently possesses)—and a mandate to present photo identification when casting a ballot. Trump has also insisted that the bill ban mail-in voting, describing the procedure as “crooked” and “corrupt” despite the fact that he himself has cast several mail-in ballots.

“THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!” Trump continued in his Friday post. “If the Dumocrats, or any RINO (or worse!) working with them, do not allow a positive Vote on SAVE AMERICA, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and pass this, and every other Bill that true Republicans have ever dreamt of (In addition to the upcoming Budget BOMB and the 1929 catastrophic style DEBT CEILING BILL!)”

But Republicans simply do not have the votes to end the filibuster or pass Trump’s unpopular voter ID bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told The Hill last month.

Meanwhile, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is an immediate necessity to free up America’s housing market. It was drafted to address the American housing crisis, which has suffered from bottlenecked supply, stalled family growth, and surged home and rental prices across the country. The bill will funnel resources towards increasing housing supply, streamlined environmental reviews, and force the Department of Housing and Urban Development to address red-tape issues related to zoning and land-use that have historically posed barriers to housing development.

In June, Trump described the bill as “a yawn.”

Trump’s intention to detach himself from the effort comes on the heels of a bombshell report by the National Association of Realtors that indicated national home prices in June rose to the highest level on record.

“Republicans would rather make it harder to vote than easier to afford a home,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X, responding to Trump. “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

This story has been updated.

A newly released video appears to show Senator Mitch McConnell being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher as he was transported to the hospital last month.

CNN spoke to a neighbor of the Kentucky senator and former Senate majority leader, who said that they saw two ambulances, a fire truck, and Capitol Police officers blocking their street at 8:30 a.m. on June 14. That neighbor took a video of emergency responders pushing a person, whose face is not visible, on a stretcher to an ambulance.

When the neighbor asked what was going on, police officers said that there was a medical emergency. The neighbor then asked if the person having the emergency was McConnell, to which the officers replied they would close the street for any person, according to CNN. The neighbor said that another witness told them that McConnell was the person on the stretcher and wasn’t wearing an oxygen mask.

“He’s in a stretcher, and he’s in some sort like orange foam looking blanket type thing,” the neighbor told the news outlet, adding that they could see McConnell’s uncovered feet, which did not appear to be moving. The first responders did not seem to be moving urgently, the neighbor noted.

“In a situation where perhaps time is of the essence, there seems to be a little bit more urgency, but there was no urgency here,” the neighbor said to CNN.

Very little information is known about McConnell’s condition, as his office hasn’t divulged much information in the nearly one month he’s been at George Washington University Hospital, only to say that he’s been receiving “excellent care.” Some on the right speculate that McConnell is brain-dead or worse, as no pictures or audio of the senator have been made public.

McConnell’s congressional colleagues claim to have spoken to him on the phone, but the public has not seen anything about McConnell’s physical or mental state. Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear is demanding answers from McConnell’s office on what’s going on.

Donald Trump has completely neutered the Election Assistance Commission.

The last three remaining members of the four-member bipartisan commission were forced out of the independent agency Thursday. The two Democratic appointees—Thomas Hicks and Benjamin W. Hovland—were fired via an email notice from the White House Presidential Personnel ​Office, according to inside sources that spoke with Reuters. The agency’s Republican commissioner—Christy McCormick—recieved a call and was asked to resign, reported NBC News.

“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance ​Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” read the termination email delivered to the two Democratic appointees.

The Election Assistance Commission, or EAC, was created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to help states administer elections. It has also provided consultation on voting procedures. Its fourth commissioner left the agency in April.

The mass overhaul comes in the immediate wake of a Supreme Court decision—Trump v. Slaughter—that granted the president more power over independent agencies late last month. The 6–3 decision overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 91-year-old precedent that had historically shielded staffers at such agencies from political interference by protecting them from being fired by the president at will.

The White House confirmed the terminations later on Thursday, suggesting that the EAC commissioners had not passed the Trump administration’s loyalty test.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring ​every legal vote is counted,” a White House official said in a statement that cited the Supreme Court’s decision.

The White House told NBC News that all of the EAC’s members “will be replaced,” though doing so will require presidential appointments and subsequent Senate confirmations. Considering Capitol Hill’s current appointment turnaround times (as influenced by Trump’s SAVE America Act demands), that process could take an extraordinarily long amount of time at a point when America only has a few short months until a contentious midterm season.

The federal immigration agents who shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican father of three in Texas, weren’t even looking for him.

When ICE agents conducted a deadly traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday, they were looking for two people from Guatemala, two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times. Agents believed one of the people they were looking for drove a white van—instead, they found Salgado Araujo and three men he was driving to work.

Before conducting the traffic stop, federal agents knew they had the wrong man. They reportedly looked up the owner of the van and learned it was Salgado Araujo, who was undocumented. The supposedly “targeted operation” ended in ICE’s tenth fatal shooting this year.

In the hours after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security claimed the officer had fired in self-defense after Salgado Araujo refused to comply with orders and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.”

But the other three men in the car who were arrested by ICE told their lawyer that was a lie—there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. Surveillance footage from the traffic stop also doesn’t support DHS’s claim. One video showed that agents boxed in Salgado Araujo’s car, before he attempted to U-turn and drive the other way. Another video showed that there was no damage to the ICE agents’ vehicle.

In another potentially dark turn in the saga, the three men who were with Salgado Araujo are under pressure from immigration officials to agree to self-deport, Juan Proaño, a representative for the families and CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said in an interview with The New Republic.

ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Texas on Tuesday morning. The agents stated that Salgado Araujo ignored verbal instructions and tried to ram their vehicle. Newly obtained footage puts a massive asterisk over those claims of self-defense.

Surveillance video footage obtained by local outlet KHOU 11 shows the agents using their unmarked black SUV in an attempt to box in Salgado Araujo—initiating the conflict. Salgado Araujo makes a U-turn and heads in the other direction, and the agents then turn around to follow him.

While the video did not capture the final moments of the shooting, separate footage showed no damage to the ICE vehicle, again weakening federal agents’ claim that Salgado Araujo tried to ram them.

This discrepancy between the agents’ statements and the video footage has led to widespread calls for an independent investigation into Salgado Araujo’s death. Complicating that is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security detained the three other immigrant men in the car with Salgado Araujo—one of whom is Salgado Araujo’s brother—and is pressuring them to self-deport, preventing them from serving as witnesses.

“What we have heard … is that they’re being told to sign voluntary departures. They’re being told to cooperate with the version [of events] that ICE has released,” Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight head Cesar Espinosa told Democracy Now! on Thursday. “Threatening them that they’re going to file charges if they don’t, or that they’re going to be deported expeditiously. And what we fear is that this is another effort from ICE to cover up something that they did very, very wrong.”

ICE also arrested and detained witnesses after the killing of Alex Pretti in January. And this isn’t the first time it’s offered this version of events, either. When Marimar Martinez was shot five times in her car last year, ICE initially claimed that when the officers exited their vehicle, Martinez tried to run them over, “forcing the officers to fire defensively.” Bodycam footage showed no such thing, and her charges were dismissed.

“They are being approached by unmarked vehicles. These vehicles, many times, often, start ramming vehicles, trying to get them to stop. And when people jump out, they’re not wearing insignia saying ‘federal agents’ or ‘ICE’ or a badge. They’re wearing, a lot of the times, plain clothing with vests that just say ‘police,’” Espinosa continued. “So, I cannot imagine the fear that a lot of people feel when they are being persecuted by somebody that’s unknown. And I ask people, you know, put yourself in these folks’ shoes and ask yourself: How would you react?”

Salgado Araujo, a father of three U.S. citizens, had been in the United States for almost 35 years.