Politics
A 'Locally hated/Dyslexic Hairstylist' battles the Christian right in a Texas town
One might wonder how Adrienne Quinn Martin, a hairdresser, former belly dancer, mother of two and long-ago brand girl for a liquor distributor, a woman who celebrated her husband’s birthday on TikTok by swaying against him while listening to Al Green, became the lone-elected Democrat in one of the reddest towns in Texas.
“Oh,” Martin says, “I’ve had lives.”
Fluent in social media, she is an array of personas: a hard to quantify free-spirit, who in one instant can offer fashion tips (“I’m having a Britney moment”) and, in another, analyze voter registration data. She is a fierce political operative, a guileless influencer and a relentless voice against the far right in this Christian, white, cattle-talking town of about 12,600.
Martin washes Rose Simpson’s hair at Four Thirteen Salon in Granbury, Texas.
“Wait,” she said, when asked to call up a Twitter post about a constable who once had ties to the militant Proud Boys. “I have that.”
Click, scroll, click.
“Here it is,” she said. “I have, like, 33,000 screenshots.”
She smiled and swiped through more images on her phone.
To the dismay of many here, Martin helped organize a Black Lives Matter protest and welcomed drag queens to town for an HBO series. She caused a stir two years ago when she attended a meeting of the Granbury Independent School Board and condemned conservatives who “rant and rave” about banning books on sexuality and LGBTQ+ themes. Her subsequent video post has been viewed millions of times.
Once underestimated by her enemies, Martin, a self-appointed watchdog tuned into the plots and players in a small, gossipy community, has found that her message is radiating beyond the fields and steeples of Hood County.
“I get furious about an injustice that happens to someone else,” said Martin, 46. “It’s a kind of a curse, to be honest.”
Martin, right, speaks during a Texas Democratic Women of Hood County meeting at Spring Creek Barbecue in Granbury.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
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Martin was born and raised in Texas. She is intimate with its maps and vernaculars, and the way summer settles hard on the north-central plains along the Brazos River south of Horseshoe Bend near Granbury. But even a provocateur with polished nails and the best intentions — “I want to make this town a more friendly and inclusive place” — has to navigate the fissures and divisions in a time of cultural unease, religious fervor and battles over the nation’s identity.
She marshals the allure and immediacy of Instagram and TikTok with ease. She often appears in videos wearing big earrings, blond hair brushed to the side and falling long, inviting her followers into the confidences of a politically astute beautician. She offers advice on cropped-flair jeans, secrets about evangelical wives who hate their husbands, and warnings against the antiabortion movement. Her following — 50,000 on TikTok, 11,000 on X and 4,169 on Instagram — is not huge, but she knows the back roads and the fairways and has a widening degree of influence.
Dusk over the Brazos River in Granbury, Texas. “I want to make this town a more friendly and inclusive place,” Martin says.
“You can change society if you have a message, even if you’re part of a small community. But you have to watch your politics. Watch what you say,” said Martin, the elected chair of the Democratic Party of Hood County, who once described herself on X as a “Locally hated/Dyslexic Hairstylist.”
“This is Texas,” she aded. “Everybody is armed, so there’s always that in your mind. We have relatives we have conflicts with. Friendships have ended. ‘Oh,’ people will say, ‘She’s that Democrat bitch.’ My husband gets anxious when I go places.”
“I support everything Adrienne does,” said her husband, a native of Granbury who asked not to be named. The couple met more than 18 years ago on MySpace. “My head’s on a swivel whenever she goes out. I’m looking here, looking there, to protect her. You never know when someone will do something stupid.”
Martin has two children, six cats and a dog. She drives around in a golf cart to neighborhood garage sales. Her playlist ranges from Elvis to the Beastie Boys. Her social media posts, even those that nod to fashion and accessories, are authentic takes on life by a woman who is at once unabashed and earnest, a progressive who understands her gravity in the scheme of things. She hopes her 14-year-old son makes the basketball team and has posted angrily about a woman abandoning cats in a parking lot.
“I have everything in my phone,” she said the other day over coffee while scrolling for the town’s latest transgression, sitting in a cafe where eyes take notice when she enters. Even amid political furies, Martin, who looks like she stepped off the set of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” appears more amused than startled, speaking in the low, accented voice of a woman paging through a family scrapbook, pointing out histories and disappointments. “It’s amazing what I’ve been able to get away with.”
Martin made the news after her Instagram posts on Texas’ confusing voter registration process went viral.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Martin became active in politics years ago when a family member was denied medical insurance for a pre-existing condition. Many here see her as the embodiment of an America undergoing a cultural shift that threatens the heritage and political sensibilities of an old frontier town disquieted by changing times and suspicious of alternative lifestyles. A confidant to her gay friends since high school, Martin started Granbury for All, an LGBTQ+ support group that has about 300 members.
When even the most hardened political observers are becoming jaded, Martin, who does have her cynical days, is fascinated by the intricacies of power. She’s become an expert on the maneuverings in the state capitol, and she made the TV news in Austin recently after her Instagram posts on Texas’ confusing voter registration process went viral. Martin criticized the Texas secretary of state’s office, which suggested that prospective voters who had filled out an electronic form and hit submit were successfully registered. They were not. The form had to be printed and mailed into a registrar’s office.
“This is a voter suppression trick,” Martin posted on Instagram, noting that Republican lawmakers have long opposed online registration. Days later, the state updated its website to make the process clearer. It was a rare win and Martin was ecstatic. She posted a follow-up video, saying, “Oh, my God look at this. . .Victory.”
Austin Odgers fishes with his sons Liam, 3, and Wyatt, 6, right, in Granbury.
Much of Martin’s furor has been directed at the Granbury Independent School District, which was investigated by the U.S. Department of Education after it removed LGBTQ+-themed books from its shelves. The board had targeted more than 100 books to be purged but only about eight were eliminated. Martin criticized Christian right-wing residents, some of whom have no children in school, for pressuring the district to limit access to gender and racial topics. At a 2023 school board meeting, she used the word “weird” to describe MAGA Republicans before vice presidential candidate Tim Walz turned it into a meme.
“Some community members have developed an unhealthy obsession with book banning,” she said at the meeting, suggesting that those calling for bans wanted to “prove [their] righteousness so that [they] can bring down the school district. Is that for the kids? Why the obsession with finding these books? Why is that your fantasy? It’s weird.”
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Martin grew up in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie. The daughter of a business manager and a teacher, she has been a belly dancer at a hookah bar and a “promo-girl” for a liquor distributor. She moved to Los Angeles when she was 18 to study at the Joe Blasco Makeup Artist Training Center. She returned to Texas months later and worked on TV commercials and independent movies before moving to Granbury, which she describes as “a little place” with a racist tinge (”the N-word is rampant”) where the far-right Republicans have become “chaos agents. Deconstructionists. They’re so friggin negative it’s exhausting.”
Conservatives either get riled by Martin or pay her no mind. She is harassed online. She’s been called a “whore” and a groomer; someone threatened to burn down her house. Steve Biggers, former chair of the Hood County Republican Party, said, “God bless Adrienne, although we disagree on just about everything.” Another former Republican official said: “She can be very radical, but she’s in such a vast minority that people ignore her.”
“Republicans don’t like Adrienne at all. She gets in their face,” said Sherry Johnson, a retired teacher and president of the Texas Democratic Women of Hood County, which has about 70 members. “Adrienne has come into her own. She’s a force that got Democrats involved again. I remember when she became party chair. She was a young woman. Inexperienced. She was nervous about public speaking. That’s all changed. She’s a rock star.”
Linda Peacock checks in for a Texas Democratic Women of Hood County meeting in Granbury.
A vastly outnumbered Democrat, whose progressiveness confounds even some in her own party, Martin keeps her gaze on the infighting between far-right and traditional Republicans. Her phone often glows with backbiting messages from Republican factions going after one another, notably in a recent intraparty skirmish over the appointment of a district clerk, which led to name-calling and a lawsuit. She follows the social media pages of both wings and occasionally supports traditional Republicans in key races.
“It’s more effective for Democrats and moderate Republicans to work together,” said Martin, who recently attended a local campaign kickoff for traditional Republican candidates, including a school board member who betrayed the far-right by opposing wide-scale book banning. “This is Granbury. You have to take a small win over nothing at all. The far-right wins on low-information voters. Just like Trump.”
Martin carries Harris-Walz signs for others to post.
Her adopted home has a rural charm with a well-swept downtown visited on weekends by people from Dallas and Fort Worth. Granbury, which is overwhelmingly white, has become a popular retirement community with gated neighborhoods and second homes on the lake. It is the seat of Hood County, where rodeos and “cowboy tourism” are popular and preachers conflate Bible parables and politics. Jesus and Trump — who carried the county by 81% of the vote in 2020 — are often spoken in the same breath.
The town has a reverence for the past and a fascination for the slightly odd, including a museum with more than 6,000 dolls dating back to 1868. Banners with photos of veterans and dead soldiers peer over sidewalks and legend has it that Jesse James lived here in an age of stagecoaches and outlaws. A frontier attitude brims among older folks, some of whose grandchildren are homeschooled and whose enmity toward the government runs deep. Many here want to keep Granbury as it was, as if nostalgia, both real and invented, lay claim to the future.
“It was once a small town and now it’s one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S.,” said Jim Cato, who works with Martin on Granbury for All. In 2015, he and his partner were denied a license for a same-sex marriage by an ultraconservative county clerk, resulting in a lawsuit and settlement that ultimately granted the license. “The Hispanic population is increasing. People here are threatened by anyone who is not white, straight and Christian,” said Cato, adding, “diversity is coming.”
The sun sets behind a set of three crosses outside a church in Granbury.
Martin challenged that sensibility two years ago. On July 4, the same week her Democratic Party parade float was decorated with rainbow banners, which received boos and jeers from some, the cast from the HBO drag queen series “We’re Here” appeared in town. The series is a gender-fluid travelog that visits American communities and stages drag shows. It landed in Granbury after the school district made national news over book banning.
Much of the town’s reaction was predictable: “Big city evil has been slithering into Granbury,” said one post on social media. Martin saw an opportunity to educate. Her politics and support of the LGBTQ+ community led to her being featured on the show, including the drag queen performance in which she dressed like Barbie and slipped on a plumed-out pink wig. She was in tears at the end. In a town less accepting than many, she had stood with those at the edges and found, for a moment, while her husband clapped, couples danced and a disco ball glittered, righteous exhilaration in a billiard hall.
Martin takes a break at the Four Thirteen Salon in Granbury.
“Things like racism and transphobia piss me off,” said Martin, who has a biracial nephew. “My mom said I was always like that. I didn’t go to college and it took me awhile — years — to build up confidence. But you don’t have to be educated to get people to listen to you. I followed a need. I started thinking, ‘I’m good at this. I can help people.’ ” She added: “I know I’m privileged too. I’m a white, blond mom.”
That comes with its own liabilities. She said she has grown accustomed to sexism, including from men in her own party, one of whom refused to give her a key to the Democrats’ headquarters. A joke about oral sex was once told in her company by a fellow party member. Men have critiqued her videos on production and grammar, and one party man decided to write a newspaper column for her, believing she wasn’t up to the task. She turned him down and composed her own. “It was impacting how I did my job at the beginning,” she said. “Now, it’s just a nuisance.”
The county, she said, can be confounding. She drove the curved road the other day to the DeCordova Bend Country Club, which overlooks Lake Granbury. The air was calm and boats glimmered far off. “People think we’re ass-backward rednecks, but that’s not true,” said Martin, who ordered a salad and kissed her husband before his round of golf. “There’s good people here.” She added, though, that conservative agendas like the county clerk denying a marriage license to a gay couple in 2015, “start in Granbury and then spread.”
She looked across the dining room. Big windows shone in the noon light. A few men in from the fairways drank beer at a nearby table. Her phone hummed with messages. She has learned when to respond and when not; she knows the eccentricities and calibrations at play. “Two extremist candidates for the school board lost in the last election,” she said. “The Democrats helped make that happen by joining with the moderate Republicans for a common cause. That’s a win, no matter whether we’re in power or not. I like the fight. It gets me passionate.”
Adrienne Martin, left, recites the Pledge of Allegiance.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Martin doesn’t mind silences, where a glance will often reveal more about a person’s politics than a raft of chatter, but she’s busy and likes to keep things moving. She recalled the most recent Fourth of July town parade when she waved from the Democrats’ float. She watched the cheerleaders and the veterans, the posse of sheriff’s deputies and the firetrucks, the passing faces in the crowd. A kid stood among them. The kid didn’t clap or yell, but she saw a shudder of recognition across his face, a slight smile of solidarity for LGBTQ+ rights, perhaps, she said, on the road to a town’s acceptance.
Politics
Trump-aligned House holdouts accused of holding ‘life-saving’ veterans bill ‘hostage’ over SAVE America Act
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A sweeping veterans package supporters describe as the largest expansion of veterans’ health care and benefits in more than a decade is expected to return to the House floor when lawmakers come back from the July recess, but backers warn the legislation could once again become collateral damage in the Republican standoff over the SAVE America Act.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act rolls roughly 60 veterans bills into a package that would dramatically expand veterans’ health care and benefits. At its core, the legislation would cement veterans’ access to community care outside the VA while increasing benefits for combat-wounded veterans, caregivers and Gold Star families, expanding mental health services and enacting dozens of additional reforms.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., told Fox News Digital he intends to bring the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act back for a vote as soon as the House reconvenes next week.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – MARCH 17: Eugene Simpson, 29, from Dale City, Virginia goes through physical therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. with Michael Minor, a kinesiotherapist with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs on March 17, 2006 in Washington, D.C., USA. (Photo by Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images) (Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
The legislation was held up last month after a group of House Republicans joined Democrats to defeat a procedural vote, stopping the House from taking up the bill.
“I’m feeling good as long as my members stay with us on the rule,” Bost said. “Right now, there’s some politics being played, not about this bill, but just in general.”
The bill became entangled in a broader House Republican fight over the SAVE America Act, legislation championed by President Donald Trump that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
On June 30, the House voted on H. Res. 1398, the procedural rule governing floor consideration of several bills, including the National Defense Authorization Act and the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. The rule failed after 14 Republicans joined Democrats in opposition, preventing the House from taking up the veterans package and bringing floor business to a standstill. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., claimed to have voted against the rules vote in protest against House leadership’s handling of the SAVE America Act. As a result, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sent the members home early.
Bost accused the holdouts of effectively putting veterans legislation on hold.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs building is seen in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. (Photo by Alastair Pike / AFP) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Images) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Image)
‘IT’S A MESS’: GOP TURNS ON HOUSE CONSERVATIVES AS VOTER ID BLOCKADE STALLS TRUMP’S AGENDA
“They’re holding all bills hostage,” Bost said. “They’re not voting for any rule. Any bill that has to pass a rule before it comes to the floor—which this bill does because of its size—can’t move.”
Although Bost said he supports the SAVE America Act and has voted for it three times, he argued the Senate’s failure to act should not stop the House from advancing unrelated legislation.
“I agree with that bill,” Bost said. “But the Senate still has to do their work. We don’t stop our work because the Senate isn’t doing it.”
With 23 legislative days left in the Congressional session, Concerned Veterans for America Strategic Director John Byrnes, a supporter of the bill, said time is of the essence.
“There are lots and lots of things that have to get done,” Byrnes told Fox News Digital. “There’s also the National Defense Authorization Act, which is a must pass every year, so these things eat up time. There’s requirements to have debate on these, which eat up session time.”
Byrnes argued that every procedural delay pushes other legislation further down the calendar.
“This bill will save lives in 2027,” Byrnes said. “If we lose veterans because they could have had faster, better access to health care, we’re never going to get those veterans back.”
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill. ( )
TRUMP’S SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWS SIGNS OF LIFE IN THE SENATE DESPITE REPUBLICAN REVOLT
But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who also voted no on the procedural vote, told Fox News Digital that he has concerns about how the bill is financed.
“I appreciate what the chairman’s trying to do in some respects, but there’s a few issues,” Roy said.
Among them, Roy pointed to provisions offsetting new spending through changes affecting other veterans.
“You’re taxing certain veterans to provide some sort of benefits and changes to other veterans,” Roy said. “There are concerns about some of the pay-fors.”
Veterans of Foreign Wars has also taken issue with Section 108 of the bill, warning that it would codify changes to future disability ratings for tinnitus and sleep apnea to help finance other veterans priorities.
But Bost said this is inaccurate.
“No veteran is going to have their benefits reduced,” Bost said. “If you’re receiving a benefit right now, that’s not going to be reduced at all.”
Roy, who previously served two years on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he supported a lot of what the bill was seeking to accomplish; but said other pieces of legislation are priorities, too.
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“There is a block of us for whom border security, the SAVE Act and demonstrating our leadership on major issues is critical,” Roy said. “Some of these other bills may or may not get hung up based on a desire of many in the conference to see movement on other things.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Luna’s office and the White House for comment.
WASHINGTON — Shortly before President Trump ended a ceasefire with Iran this week, Israeli officials presented his team with intelligence indicating Tehran was hatching new plots to kill him.
It was not the first such warning. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have tracked evidence for years of Iranian efforts to target the president, with signals only increasing since the start of the war.
Their desire to target Trump and his top aides began six years ago, just outside Baghdad International Airport, when the president ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general. The assassination of Qassem Suleimani brought the two countries to the brink of war.
Yet even as full-scale war was averted, top Iranian officials vowed revenge for the strike, authorizing attempts on the lives not just of the president, but of his secretary of State and national security advisor, among others, even after they had left office.
Now, calls for revenge have reached a sharper pitch in Tehran, after a joint U.S.-Israeli operation killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war in February.
At Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies this week, red flags of vengeance flew throughout the capital as protesters explicitly called on their government to “kill Trump.” His son, Mojtaba, the new supreme leader, was absent from the commemorations, fearing assassination himself.
Mourners hold an anti-President Trump banner at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque during mass funeral prayers for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family in Tehran on Sunday.
(Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The prospect of foreign assassination plots targeting U.S. leaders puts the United States in dangerous new territory, where its embrace of political killings could ultimately place its own officials at unprecedented risk. And experts fear the existential threat of assassination has pushed peace further out of reach: When both sides believe their survival is at stake, the trust required for diplomacy becomes far harder to achieve.
Israeli news organizations have reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cited Iranian attempts to kill Trump in recent years as part of his case to go to war in the first place.
A U.S. official told The Times that a range of serious threats exist against the president, including from Iran, but that Israel’s intelligence pointed to a more specific plot. The official did not provide further details. Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said in recent months that the government sees vengeance against U.S. officials as “its legitimate duty and right,” and “will fulfill this great responsibility and duty with all its might.”
“The Suleimani killing accelerated a lifting of restraints on foreign assassinations — and the taboo on targeting and killing foreign leaders, with U.S. military assets, has been more or less lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political professor at George Washington University.
“If the United States sets the example of how to conduct international relations, and it is using assassination of foreign leaders as a political weapon, it’s only logical that other countries will be more inclined to also engage in assassinations,” Dallek added. “It does seem likely that Trump will have a bigger target on his back.”
Returning from a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, Trump was forced to switch back to an old model of Air Force One — equipped with specialized defensive technologies — from a new plane given as a gift by Qatar, after the Secret Service warned of potential threats to the aircraft from Iran.
“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,” Trump told reporters aboard the plane. “I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long.”
The threat has remained on his mind in the days since. In an interview with the New York Post, Trump told the reporter, “I hope you’ll miss me,” adding that he has “been on their list for a long time.” And in a subsequent social media post Friday night, he warned of a catastrophic response he instructed the administration to pursue in the event Tehran succeeds.
“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote, “with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!”
The United States had a decades-old prohibition against assassinating foreign leaders before Trump’s presidency, codified in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 over concerns of a CIA plot to kill Fidel Castro.
The policy was only strengthened further by subsequent administrations, fearing a new international standard for targeted killings could result in unintended consequences in the halls of Washington.
Other administrations have been accused of targeting foreign leaders before. Under the Obama administration, an international coalition targeting the Libyan regime of Moammar Kadafi during the country’s 2011 civil war struck his fleeing convoy, leading to his capture and killing by rebel fighters.
But experts say Trump’s explicit targeting of Suleimani and Khamenei — and his public celebration of their deaths — marks a new paradigm.
“Through words and actions, President Trump has done more to normalize political violence than any other U.S. president, certainly in modern times,” said Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and author of “Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism.”
“On the international front alone, the president routinely brags about killing Iranian leaders and seizing the leader of Venezuela, among others,” he added, “to the point that assassination is becoming the new normal in international politics.”
Politics
Trump takes unusual step, lets bipartisan housing bill become law unsigned amid SAVE pressure campaign
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A bipartisan housing bill became law Saturday at midnight after President Donald Trump declined to sign it, capping a weeks-long saga over whether the president would veto the measure amid frustrations with Congress over his stalled agenda.
Trump refused to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act — legislation aimed at expanding the nation’s housing stock and lowering costs — in an attempt to pressure Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, despite the housing bill clearing both chambers with overwhelming majorities.
“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% with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” he declared on Truth Social Friday morning.
The Trump-backed election measure, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and impose voter ID requirements, has struggled to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
Meanwhile, the House has not passed a version of the bill that includes the president’s proposed crackdown on mail-in voting and banning men from women’s sports.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
Under the U.S. Constitution, Trump had 10 days, not including Sundays, to sign or veto the housing measure after the House formally transmitted the legislation to the White House in late June. The president ultimately chose neither option, allowing the measure to become law without his signature.
Though Trump declined to veto the legislation, he sharply criticized elements of the bill and argued it should not have been a legislative priority in recent weeks.
“It’s so unimportant … compared to the SAVE America Act,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in late June. “I think the SAVE America Act is exactly what it says. It’s saving America from crooked elections.”
Trump went on to call the housing bill “a yawn,” adding, “compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”
It would have taken a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a veto — a margin the House and Senate exceeded when they passed the legislation. However, it remains unclear whether so many Republicans would have defied the president had he vetoed the bill.
Trump also appeared to criticize the bill over a provision restricting Wall Street investors from purchasing single-family homes — a policy he first proposed during his January State of the Union address and later urged Congress to pass. Trump previously argued the investor ban would give individual homebuyers a leg up against private equity firms in the housing market.
“I don’t want to hurt people that own houses, too,” Trump later told reporters, appearing to reference the provision. “These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses. They’ve become rich. I don’t want to hurt them either. What you want to do is what’s good for everyone, get the interest rates down.”
The law also aims to boost housing supply by streamlining federal environmental reviews, loosening rules around the construction of factory-built homes, and incentivizing local governments to modify their zoning laws to allow more housing, among roughly 60 provisions.
Trump’s souring on the legislation created headaches for Republicans, who touted the bill as an affordability win as voters grapple with high housing costs.
“It’s irresponsible to postpone signing the Housing bill due to the SAVE Act,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a retiring lawmaker who lost re-election to a Trump-backed challenger, wrote on social media. “We need to start delivering relief to people for the high cost of housing ASAP!!”
Construction workers stand on the roof of homes under construction at a new housing development on June 24, 2026, in Valencia, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WARREN TELLS TRUMP TO ‘SIGN THE DAMN BILL’ AS BIPARTISAN HOUSING PACKAGE REMAINS STALLED IN WASHINGTON
Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the legislation at the U.S. Capitol in June with GOP leaders. The stage had already been set, with at least one senior Republican arriving unaware the president had called off the event shortly before it was scheduled to begin.
The president then declared he would not sign the legislation until Congress passed the SAVE America Act, despite Senate GOP leaders insisting the votes do not exist to advance the measure.
Trump has also expressed frustration with the Republican-controlled Senate for declining to weaken the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the upper chamber.
“GET SMART REPUBLICANS, IF YOU DON’T, YOU WON’T BE IN OFFICE FOR LONG!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
Before Trump came out against the bill, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history” and said it included an array of policies “long championed” by Trump.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15, 2025. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Trump political operative James Blair touted the legislation for including the president’s Wall Street investor ban, which he referred to as a “signature commitment.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has argued that Republicans will still promote the landmark housing bill ahead of November.
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“We’ll still celebrate it, but he’s trying to make a point, and I think he’s making it very effectively,” the speaker recently told reporters, referring to Trump. “And the fact that you all ask me every three steps down the hallway illustrates that he has achieved the desired objective, and that is to make SAVE America the number one thing, because if we don’t get that right, everybody’s concerned about what happens next.”
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