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News Analysis: Once again, the world sizes up a Trump presidency

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News Analysis: Once again, the world sizes up a Trump presidency

As Donald Trump takes the oath of office Monday for the second time, the world is watching with a mix of fascination, curiosity, elation or dread — and a sense that this time around, those outside the United States perhaps have a better idea of what to expect from his presidency.

Even before Inauguration Day, the 2½ months of transition since Trump defeated his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, had already yielded head-spinning developments on the global scene.

Some of America’s closest traditional allies were jolted by the president-elect’s rhetoric evoking an expansionist 19th century ethos, delivered via modern-day social media blast. Populist figures, already emboldened by a tidal wave of anti-establishment electoral sentiment, have found a congenial reception in Trump’s orbit.

And autocratic governments are anticipating a far more transactional relationship with Washington, unburdened by diplomatic discourse about human rights or the rule of law.

Trump may be the most mercurial American president in decades, but embedded in that is a certain element of predictability: that nearly any long-standing international norm may well fall by the wayside. The keenly felt fragility of a post-World War II rules-based order is its own kind of road map, some veteran observers suggest.

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Many foreign leaders “are no longer scrambling to figure out what to do,” said Daniel Fried, who spent nearly four decades as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.

“They know they have to plan for all contingencies,” said Fried, now with the Atlantic Council think tank. “They have a better sense this time, though it still rattles them.”

Trump’s heavy footfall in the final days before assuming office almost certainly brought about the finalization of a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement in the devastating war in the Gaza Strip. The deal drafted by the Biden administration took effect the day before Trump’s swearing-in.

Though Trump has backed off on a boast that he would halt the fighting in Ukraine in 24 hours, there is a sense among all involved parties that Trump’s presidency will alter the trajectory of the nearly three-year-old full-scale Russian invasion of its sovereign neighbor.

Then there’s China. The upheaval triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the immensely popular short-video app TikTok must sever ties with its Chinese parent company or face a U.S. ban will likely surface some insights into future dealings by Washington and Beijing over accelerating technological, trade and military rivalries.

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“China could be a big surprise” under Trump, said Michael Cox, an emeritus professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. One factor to watch closely, he said, were the “huge” business interests in China of the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, a prominent but relatively new figure in Trump’s orbit.

Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla billionaire, also has Trump’s seeming imprimatur as he shocks close partners like Germany and the United Kingdom with verbal broadsides against their elected leaders and highly amplified backing for domestic far-right forces.

With Germany’s election just over a month away, Trump has raised no objection as Musk has used his social media platform, X, to tout the far-right party Alternative for Germany as a national savior. Chancellor Olaf Scholz again Friday branded Musk’s electioneering “completely unacceptable.”

In Britain, in an upending of the decades-old “special relationship,” Musk has urged the release of a notorious jailed anti-Muslim extremist, Tommy Robinson, and loudly declared that Prime Minister Keir Starmer belongs in jail. All met by silence from Trump.

“It all sends a very disturbing message to Europe — to people friendly to the United States,” said Cox, who is also with the British think tank Chatham House.

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Underscoring the populist-friendly tone of the new administration, expected inaugural attendees include Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British firebrand politician Nigel Farage. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, who had endorsed Trump as a “man of peace,” was invited but could not attend, Hungarian media reported.

As Trump, Musk and their team have done in Europe, they have already signaled their approach to Latin America and where they will place their favors. Trump was courting Latin American leaders accused of human rights abuses and antipathy to democratic norms even before he won election.

Argentinian President Javier Milei, who styles himself after Trump and vowed to take a “chain saw” (which he often wielded at rallies) to his country’s government and institutions, is invited to the inauguration. So is El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who calls himself the world’s coolest dictator and engineered a second term in office despite a constitutional prohibition. Bukele also adopted bitcoin as a national currency, is profiting in crypto circles and said to be admired by Musk.

Allies of Trump have sought to undermine democratic leftist governments in Latin America, such as Guatemala and Colombia, and will likely reverse President Biden’s last-minute diplomatic concessions to Cuba that included taking it off the U.S. list of sponsors of international terrorism, a designation that advocates considered unfair and that damaged the struggling Cuban economy.

Mexico and Panama will be especially vexed by Trump.

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Their presidents, Claudia Sheinbaum and José Raúl Mulino, respectively, are seeking a way to placate some of his demands, such as slowing illegal immigration that originates or passes through their countries, while standing up to ideas that they see as a threat to national sovereignty.

Trump has entertained declaring Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a designation that could be used to attack them militarily inside Mexican territory. He has also said he wants to take back control of the Panama Canal, a vital waterway that the U.S. once controlled as an American colony on foreign soil but was turned over to Panama in a treaty signed by then-President Carter in 1977. Trump declined to rule out using the military to seize the canal.

Trump’s nominee for secretary of State, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), has stopped short of echoing some of Trump’s most unorthodox views but largely supported an “America first” agenda, saying every policy decision must face three questions: “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Or does it make America more prosperous?”

In the Middle East, dramatic events surrounding the cease-fire breakthrough between Israel and the militant group Hamas were drawing “split-screen” comparisons with the 1981 inauguration of Ronald Reagan, when U.S. hostages held in Iran were freed moments after the new leader took the oath of office. The presidency of Reagan’s predecessor — Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 — was heavily shadowed by the long effort to free them.

Even before the first three hostages were released Sunday, Trump was quick to trumpet his own role in securing the accord. Announced Wednesday and finally ratified by Israel’s Cabinet early Saturday, the pact calls for a phased handing over of remaining captives, living and dead, seized by the Hamas fighters who surged into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people.

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Israel’s bombardment of Gaza over the following 15 months has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, leaving the territory in ruins and displacing about nine-tenths of its more than 2 million people.

“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” the president-elect wrote in a social media post as the breakthrough was being formalized.

Biden, for his part, acknowledged the unprecedented cooperation between Trump’s team and his own diplomats in the final push toward an accord, but could not contain himself when a reporter asked him last week if the president-elect was right to take full credit.

“Is that a joke?” he asked.

Many people in Greenland thought Trump was joking during his first presidency when he spoke of acquiring the vast island territory that is part of Denmark. But he has resurfaced the idea, refusing to rule out using military force to seize control “for the purposes of National Security.”

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Europe quickly pointed out that Trump would be attacking European borders and a NATO ally.

“We have been cooperating for the last 80 years [with the U.S.] and … have a lot to offer to cooperate with,” Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede said, “but we want also to be clear: We don’t want to be Americans.”

Fried, at the Atlantic Council, cautioned that “it was not good for the United States to have other states hedging their bets.” You never know, he said, when the U.S. will need its allies.

“I personally would take him both literally and seriously,” said Belgium-based analyst Guntram Wolff, playing off the popular political trope from Trump’s first presidential campaign, when observers parsed the difference between how his supporters and adversaries interpreted his more provocative utterances.

But he acknowledged that the world will simply have to wait and see what four more years of Trump will bring.

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“He has an agenda; he makes strong points,” said Wolff, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels think tank. “And he’s been elected.”

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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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