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Arizona mining country produced Latino leaders for L.A. Now, some are staying

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Arizona mining country produced Latino leaders for L.A. Now, some are staying

To get to Clifton, you have to really want to get to Clifton.

The nearest big city is Tucson, about three hours away. After spending the night at an uncharacteristically ratty Holiday Inn Express in Willcox, I took U.S. Route 191 through a succession of towns, each seemingly smaller than the last.

The morning drive was quiet and scenic through hills dotted with creosote bushes, spiky cacti and spindly ocotillo plants leading up to Safford, the hometown of a good friend who got the hell out of there. Route 191 bends east here, passing by blooming cotton fields nourished by the Gila River before the terrain becomes rockier and steeper.

Seven days. Seven states. Nearly 3,000 miles. Gustavo Arellano talks to Latinos across the Southwest about their hopes, fears and dreams in this election year.

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Soon, I saw what has drawn so many to Clifton over the last 150 years: one of the world’s largest open-pit copper mines.

The Morenci mine looked like the Sarlacc monster from the “Star Wars” movies. Once-picturesque cliffs had been carved into a series of pale terraces that descended hundreds of feet. Dust rose from the bottom. Rows of houses with the same gray roofs stood below me as I drove past a training center operated by the mine owner, Freeport-McMoRan.

When you picture an Old West town, Clifton is it. A decommissioned railroad car stood gleaming next to the main road. A hole blasted out of a cliff once served as a jail cell, according to a plaque. Silhouettes of cowboys decorated a motel.

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A man with glasses points to a plaque outside a rocky facade with a small opening covered by a metal grille

Times columnist Gustavo Arellano with a plaque commemorating a jail cell carved out of a cliff in Clifton, Ariz.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

I was looking for a different history.

For generations, Mexican immigrants have landed in this area before decamping to Los Angeles. Some of the most important names in L.A. Latino politics — former U.S. Rep. Esteban Torres, Councilmember Richard Alatorre, U.S. Treasurer Romana Acosta Bañuelos — were born in Arizona mining towns or traced their lineage there.

I share those roots.

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1 Richard Alatorre leaves the press room at the end of his press conference at Los Angeles City Hall.

2 The list includes Romana Acosta Bañuelos.

3 Portrait of Esteban Torres, who has his right hand under his chin.

1. Richard Alatorre is among the L.A. politicians with roots in Arizona mining towns. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 2. The list includes Romana Acosta Bañuelos. (Bettmann Archive via Getty Images) 3. Esteban Torres also hails from mine country. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

My maternal grandmother, Marcela Miranda Fernández, was born in 1912 near Clifton, in a town called Metcalf. Her future husband, my maternal grandfather, José Miranda Bermúdez, spent time there as a child before migrating to Anaheim to pick oranges.

My grandparents were always vague when they spoke about Metcalf — but I had vowed to visit one day. A reporting trip to see how Latino voters were faring as the presidential election approached was as good a reason as any.

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And now I had another question: Why would anyone want to stay in a place so many had left?

Tumbleweed

The 1970 U.S. census recorded Clifton’s population as 5,079. A crippling strike in the early 1980s led to the decertification of the miners union and spurred an exodus. By 2002, only about 2,600 people remained, according to Greenlee County statistics.

One of those who left was Janeene Carrillo.

“Growing up here was amazing,” she told me as we enjoyed breakfast at the Little Frisco, a newish diner in town. (Random L.A. connection: She’s related to the Arechigas, one of the last families evicted from Chavez Ravine). “It was probably the best childhood any kid could have. Because you’re safe. Everyone knows everyone.”

But other than the mines, opportunities were limited. After graduating high school in the late 1990s, she headed to Phoenix to study acting.

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A woman with long black hair, in a cream jack and dark pants, stands on a bridge over a brown river in a desert landscape

Janeene Carrillo, councilmember for the town of Clifton, Ariz., on a bridge overlooking the San Francisco River. The 45-year-old wants to bring businesses to the mining town in anticipation of Clifton’s main source of employment, the nearby Morenci copper mine, shutting down in the future.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

Family matters brought her back home in 2012, and she began thinking about how to make Clifton a place where people wanted to stay.

Today, she is a member of the town council, and Clifton is staging a modest comeback. The most recent census pegged the population at nearly 4,000. The median household income is $78,862, fueled by a boom in mining jobs, while the cost of living has remained low.

“We’re getting people from New Mexico, from even the Midwest,” said Carrillo, 45, picking at an omelet. “I’ve seen people come from Mississippi, from Alabama. We’re a work in progress.”

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Now a security guard for Freeport-McMoRan, she is the third generation of her family to work at the mine. Wearing a cream-colored sports coat, Carrillo brushed her perfectly coiffed, jet black hair out of her eyes while we talked. Her urban polish was a contrast to the stereotypical copper country getup of checkered shirt, western-style belt buckle, bolo tie and Stetson hat.

Once [Donald] Trump came around, I decided that’s not the Republican that I am.

— Janeene Carrillo

In Phoenix, Carrillo ditched acting after the double gut punch of a cousin’s murder and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made her feel that government was too lax on “bad guys.” She volunteered for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department and helped to process passports, realizing that “a lot of people need a voice because they don’t have it.”

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The divisions that surfaced in the 2016 election made her ditch the GOP, become an independent and get involved in politics.

“Once [Donald] Trump came around, I decided that’s not the Republican that I am,” said Carrillo, who is “into hearing both sides.”

A sign in green and red, with the words, Vote 2024

She voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and plans to vote for Kamala Harris this year out of distaste for Trump’s “disrespect” toward military veterans.

“And I really got passionate about the right and the wrong, and how some [politicians] can get away with things, especially when running for president, you know?” she said.

Carrillo worked as a town clerk to learn the mechanics of local government, then unsuccessfully applied for an open council seat in 2021. The following year, she beat an incumbent.

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“We needed something different — someone new, someone younger,” Carrillo responded when I asked why she won. “I felt like I’m looking at Clifton, like I’m on new ground. Because I never lived here as an adult, I can see what’s wrong, what’s broken. I can see the faults. I can see the patterns and what Clifton needs.”

What does her hometown need?

“There’s always talk about how the mine is probably only going to be working until maybe 2045,” she said. “And I don’t want Clifton to be dependent on the mine.”

She mentioned bringing in national chains — an Old Navy, a Target, even a Boston Market — so people don’t have to drive to Safford or beyond for necessities, and a truck stop to take advantage of the traffic that passes through. The jobs and revenue would allow Clifton to offer more municipal services, such as youth sports.

The problem, she said, is that no one outside Clifton pays attention to it.

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A view of a terraced mountain in orange hues

In Clifton, Ariz., the median household income is $78,862, fueled by a boom in mining jobs, while the cost of living has remained low. The open–pit copper mine in nearby Morenci, shown in 2004, is a major employer.

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

“On the news, when they’re doing the weather, they totally ignore us,” she said, frowning. “All they say is, ‘Oh, precipitation is moving to the east,’ but they don’t say the name. And I’m like, ‘Why don’t they say our name?’”

This erasure also applies to Clifton’s miners, I pointed out. The archetypal American miner nowadays is from Appalachia — Trump rallied with them in West Virginia. The Biden administration, including Harris as vice president, promised to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in moribund coal towns. This year, it announced that Freeport-McMoRan would receive up to $80 million to invest in clean energy to operate the Morenci mine — but none of the money would go directly to towns such as Clifton.

“Latinos have given so much to the mining industry because of the struggles that they have to … overcome,” Carrillo said, describing how Mexicans in the area were once buried apart from whites, and housing segregation existed right up to the 1970s.

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“We need our stories told,” she continued. “We need Americans to know what we’ve accomplished — we help build the United States.”

People holding hands

Does discrimination still exist in Clifton? The town is 54% Latino and 38% white.

“Everyone is married with everyone nowadays, and that’s great,” she said with a grin. I looked around Little Frisco, and Carrillo was right. Mixed race couples ate breakfast with their children in tow.

I said I was surprised to not see any presidential campaign posters in town, amid a plethora of local ones.

In 2020, Trump won two-thirds of the vote in Greenlee County while losing Arizona in a squeaker he falsely maintains was stolen. But on the drive to Clifton, I had seen few signs of the county’s red heart — or of national politics at all.

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“No one wants to get into feuds,” Carrillo said. “Because you have to be seeing everybody — you know, much more than what you would in the city. I think everyone’s really careful on how they display who they’re voting for.”

Carrillo attributed the local support for Trump — especially among Latinos — to the overtures he has made to the mining industry.

But she thinks the Biden administration’s investment in the Morenci mine may help Harris make inroads in Greenlee County this year.

“They’re seeking a candidate who supports” the hometown’s livelihood, Carrillo said.

A billboard in a desert landscape dotted with shrubs depicts people under the words "Democrats Defend Democracy"

A billboard promoting the Greenlee County Democratic Party near the unincorporated community of Three Way, Ariz. In 2020, Donald Trump won two-thirds of the vote in Greenlee County while losing Arizona.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

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After taking some photos at a historic bridge spanning the San Francisco River, we drove up U.S. Route 191 to Metcalf, where my grandmother was born. Beyond a gate was a hill as tall as a high-rise building — turned into a dump for the Morenci mine in the 1930s. Somewhere underneath the detritus was the town, buried and abandoned.

I texted a photo to some of my cousins with the note, “Somos de aquí.”

We’re from here.

Suddenly, a Greenlee County sheriff’s vehicle made a U-turn, flashed its lights and drove directly toward us.

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“Everything all right here?” Deputy Daniel Medina asked as he got out of his car. “There was a crash here recently, so I want to make sure you guys were OK.”

The name sounded familiar.

“Hey, you’re running for sheriff — I saw your signs!” I exclaimed, identifying myself as a reporter.

He smiled, greeted Carrillo, excused himself and drove off.

I soon left Clifton as well, taking winding back roads toward my next stop. Signs for Medina and his opponents were everywhere. For Harris or Trump?

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None.

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Trump-aligned House holdouts accused of holding ‘life-saving’ veterans bill ‘hostage’ over SAVE America Act

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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)

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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.

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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.

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“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.”

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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.

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“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.

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Assassinations unleashed under Trump haunt Iran war endgame

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Assassinations unleashed under Trump haunt Iran war endgame

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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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Trump takes unusual step, lets bipartisan housing bill become law unsigned amid SAVE pressure campaign

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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. 

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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.

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“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.”

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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

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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.

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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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