President Donald Trump loves to slap his name on things: hotels, merchandise, stimulus checks. But he pointedly refused to affix his name to a major housing bill that passed into law Saturday with huge, veto-proof majorities in Congress. He declined to sign it because he was still seething over another piece of legislation entirely: his repressive anti-voting bill known as the Save America Act, which Senate Republicans recently — and fortunately — failed to pass.
The passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act marks an extraordinarily rare event in today’s Washington: Congress forming a broad bipartisan majority to achieve something genuinely worthwhile. The bill is meant to address the national housing shortage and was the product of a partnership between progressive firebrand Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Trump ally Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
But just hours before the signing ceremony, Trump decided to cancel the signing. He later called the housing bill “a big yawn” compared to his voter repression bill. But he could have celebrated and pushed for both. That he saw the two as somehow at odds speaks to how zero-sum his attention span has become — and how deeply lost he is in his political obsessions.
This is a preview of a column by Zeeshan Aleem. Read the full column here. |
