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Column: L.A. County's Hall of Administration should stand, Janice Hahn says. And not because of her dad

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Column: L.A. County's Hall of Administration should stand, Janice Hahn says. And not because of her dad

I drove around downtown Los Angeles on a recent Friday morning looking for one of the Civic Center’s ugly ducklings.

The Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration … um, which building was it again?

It had been years since my only other visit, so unmemorable that I had forgotten how the ten-story structure looked. Google Maps gave me an address, but I was lost in a sea of architectural grandeur when I finally parked in a small lot near Temple and Grand. To my left was the majestic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Behind me were the Music Center’s elegant triplets of the arts: the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre.

In front of me was a building with cream-colored tiles that connected to a taller building that looked the same, except with windows.

Oh, yeah. That’s the Hall of Administration.

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Seat of the county of Los Angeles since it opened in 1960, it looks like a Lego block with slits. No wonder it’s never gotten as much love from Angelenos as its flashier neighbors, especially L.A. City Hall, which looms to the south like the haughty older civic cousin it is.

That’s why there hasn’t been any uproar since the county Board of Supervisors voted in November to buy the 52-story Gas Co. Tower for $200 million — a bargain worthy of the late, great 99 Cents Only chain, since its appraised value is $632 million — with plans to relocate county workers there, from the Hall of Administration and elsewhere, as early as this summer.

Nearly a third of the purchase price came from funds originally set aside to seismically retrofit the Hall of Administration and update its electrical system, effectively sentencing the place to the literal and historical scrap heap. The county’s preliminary plan calls for razing it, except for the portion where the supervisors hold their public meetings.

The sole “no” vote came from Janice Hahn, daughter of the Hall of Administration’s legendary namesake, the longest-serving supervisor in L.A. County history. She was waiting for me in the parking lot to give me a tour of the unloved building and argue for its virtue — and survival.

“This is Nate’s Lot,” she told me, explaining that it was named after a parking attendant who told her father he didn’t like working in the Hall of Administration’s underground garage. So the supervisor created the lot just for him.

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“There’s history like that all around in a building like this,” said Hahn, Starbucks chai latte in hand, as we walked through the doors. Three staffers accompanied us, including Mark Baucum, who is both her son and her chief of staff.

“It has a warm feel, not like …” Her face scrunched as if she had stepped on a snail, and she waited a beat before referencing the county’s recent purchase. “That soulless skyscraper.”

Gloria Molina Grand Park is nestled alongside the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, left, in Los Angeles. City Hall towers in the background.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

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The halls gleamed with vintage charm. Marble walls and terrazzo floors. Frosted windows on doors with the old-school gold sans serif font long used by county departments. Phone booths that still work. Wood-paneled elevators that Janice and her brother, former L.A. mayor and current Superior Court Judge Jim Hahn, rode as kids like they were at an amusement park.

We walked through the spacious main lobby, where people waited in line to pay their property taxes, and out of the building toward Hill Street.

“That soulless skyscraper doesn’t have a lobby like this,” Hahn said. Across the street was the Hall of Records, built in 1962. To our left were the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, opened in 1959, and Gloria Molina Grand Park.

They’re not on the chopping block,” she said, referring to the buildings. “People once thought City Hall was too expensive to retrofit. Were it not for civic-minded people, it would’ve been torn down. What a tragedy that would’ve been.”

As we rounded the Hall of Administration’s western side to look at large, gold-colored statues of Moses and Thomas Jefferson, the wear-and-tear of the 75-year-old building quickly became evident. Chunks missing from window ledges. Chipped granite base. Cracks on the walls here and there.

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“Yes, it needs work,” Hahn acknowledged, as Baucum helped a woman who couldn’t tell the difference between the Hall of Administration and the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. “We had some of that money, but it was used to buy … that soulless skyscraper. And we have a budget of $50 billion. We can do this.”

Hahn estimated the cost to be $700 million. A spokesperson for L.A. County Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport said the seismic retrofit is expected to cost about $700 million, with renovations and other needed repairs bringing the estimated total to $1.8 billion.

But should it be done? I wondered as we went back inside the Hall of Administration. What possible role could an empty building play, when the other four supervisors want to get the hell out of there, and all of the money set aside to take care of it has already been spent?

One person I figured might have some pity for the Hall of Administration was Supervisor Kathryn Barger. She’s worked there since 1989 — first as an aide, then as chief of staff to then-Supervisor Mike Antonovich, and for the last eight years in her current role.

“From an aesthetic point of view, not much there,” said Barger, who voted to buy the Gas Co. Tower, in a phone interview. “You go to City Hall, you’re like, ‘Wow.’”

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She gets Hahn’s point that it’s a historic structure, but Barger is more focused on the price tag for renovation, which she put at $1.2 billion. “I cannot discount Janice, but we have to do right by the taxpayers,” she said.

Barger mentioned that the supervisors are going to need much more office space after voters in November approved an eventual expansion of the board from five members to nine. She also brought up the late Gloria Molina, who served alongside Kenneth Hahn and whom Barger got to know well while working for Antonovich.

“Her vision and dream was to create more open space, and it was always shot down,” Barger said. She suggested that the Board of Supervisors could knock down the Hall of Administration, which spans the length of two city blocks, and expand Gloria Molina Grand Park.

“This issue is emotional for [Hahn],” Barger said, “but you have to separate the emotional from the reality.”

Janice Hahn points to a plaque on a wall

Supervisor Janice Hahn points out the word “beloved,” referring to her late father, on a plaque at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

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Hahn brought up that charge herself, then disputed it.

“Every story written implies it’s because of my father,” Hahn told me as we stood in front of a plaque near the lobby praising Kenneth Hahn’s “unsurpassed legacy of good works” in 40 years as a county supervisor. He died in 1997.

“It’s not,” she continued. “People have said, ‘We’ll put his name on the skyscraper.’ Oh, hell no. He would’ve questioned the rationale of using certain budget stats to prove” the necessity of leaving the Hall of Administration, she said. “He would find holes in their argument and find $700 million to save this hall.”

The tour went on for about an hour, with Hahn greeting every single person she passed. We visited the Board of Supervisors’ meeting room, which will remain standing (“That’ll make a disjointed county government”), and finally went up to her office. A painting hangs near the entrance, depicting her on a couch with a portrait of her dad hovering above.

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“This is my life,” Hahn cracked. “My dad always looking over my shoulder.”

We briefly sat down, then went outside to a terrace ringing the length of the Hall of Administration. The floor was peeling, but the view before us of the Civic Center and downtown was stunning.

I understood, and even appreciated, Hahn’s argument that moving the county offices from here, where other parts of L.A. government reside, would create “a gaping hole in the idea of civic togetherness,” as her son put it. But the fiscal reasoning against it was strong, I said, before asking if her crusade stood any chance of succeeding.

“I think so,” she said. “I think we’ll get the momentum. And Dad always loved a good fight.”

Her son pointed out a sliver of a skyscraper poking out behind another skyscraper. That was the Gas Co. Tower.

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“Ugh,” the supervisor said, shaking her head. “Soulless.”

After we said our goodbyes, I walked the four blocks to Hahn’s Moby Dick, which was built in 1991. She wasn’t wrong. The exterior is a bunch of charmless windows going up and up. The lobby, with its collection of elevators, scowling security guards and small glass turnstiles, is cold and anodyne. No amount of bureaucratic lipstick can pretty up this political pig.

Maybe Hahn was right, I thought as I headed back to Nate’s Lot. Then I ran into Miguel Santana, president of the California Community Foundation and a longtime Molina confidante.

I know few people who care about L.A. history and responsible leadership as much as he does. What does he think about the county abandoning the Hall of Administration?

“Great!” he said, barely breaking his stride. “I’m all for it. Gloria always wanted to knock it down and turn it into more park.”

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Good luck with your fight, Supervisor Hahn: You’re going to need it.

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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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