Awkward! House Republican Hypes Up Housing Bill — Not Realizing Trump Had Already Pulled the Plug

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A House Republican praised a housing bill that was set to be signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday — not realizing the president had just called it off.

Wednesday morning, Trump announced on Truth Social that his signing event for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act had been canceled. The goal of the bill was to lower costs by increasing housing and restricting corporate investors’ ability to buy single-family homes.

Trump said in that same post that he was effectively holding the bill hostage until the SAVE America Act was passed, adding:

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! President DJT

That post, however, didn’t appear to land on Rep. French Hill’s (R-AR) radar. Not long after Trump’s post went public, Hill was at a press conference when he talked about how “proud” he was of the work Congress did to get the bill to the president’s desk.

“It’s a legitimate issue,” Hill said, “and Tim Scott and I found a way to put that into law that, in our view, meets the president’s test, but absolutely will not reduce capital flowing into housing, which has been my top goal. Lower the cost of housing, make it more affordable, more accessible, encourage the banks to lend more that have been shut down since the global financial crisis in 2008, and this bill does that. And so, I’m proud of the work that both chambers struggled through. For those of you who cover this every day, you know the back-and-forth between the House and Senate, but it’s successful today, and I’m proud of the work of the House and Senate to get people to ‘yes.'”

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