Donald Trump lashed out at Mike Johnson when the House speaker tried to get the president to focus on legislation other than the SAVE Act, according to a report.
Johnson relayed a conversation he had with Trump to GOP leadership and committee chairs, in which the 79-year-old bluntly told him that “no one gives a ‘bleep’ about housing,” sources told Punchbowl News.
The deeply religious Johnson self-censored Trump’s swear word when he recounted the private conversation from Tuesday.
Johnson was discussing the ongoing fallout surrounding the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which aims to bring down housing costs in the U.S. The bill easily cleared the Senate 89-9 but faces opposition from hardline Republicans when it returns to the House for final passage on Thursday.
The housing bill, which could have a positive impact on millions of Americans, appears to be of little concern to the president. Instead, Trump remains fixated on the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility” bill, which would require proof of citizenship for voter registration and largely scrap mail-in ballots in elections.
The SAVE Act was passed by the GOP-controlled House but has no chance of clearing the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, as Democrats are expected to oppose it uniformly.
Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, told the Daily Beast that the suggestion Trump does not care about housing is “not accurate whatsoever.”
“The president will not stop fighting until the American dream of homeownership is within reach for every American, which is why he will sign bold new executive orders on housing in the coming days,” Ingle said. “At the same time, President Trump has made clear publicly that passing the SAVE America Act is Congress’s most urgent priority right now to strengthen election integrity and protect our democracy.”
There are fears that Trump is eager for the SAVE Act to become law as a precursor to meddling in the 2026 midterm elections, where the GOP is widely expected to suffer major losses.
The president has taken the drastic step of threatening not to sign any more legislation into law until the SAVE Act passes, and has demanded that the Senate scrap the filibuster so the bill would need only a simple majority, rather than 60 votes, to pass.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has shot down the idea of scrapping the filibuster as it lacks sufficient support among senators, even if that means the SAVE Act will ultimately fail.
“That’s just a function of math, and there isn’t anything I can do about that,” Thune told reporters. “For better or worse, I’m the one who has to be the clear-eyed realist about what we can achieve here.”
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is desperate for Trump’s endorsement in the runoff race against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has reversed course and now supports scrapping the filibuster to ensure the SAVE Act passes.
“After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and onto the president’s desk for his signature,” Cornyn wrote in the New York Post.
