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Trump wants to upend California water policy. State officials say it could do harm

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Trump wants to upend California water policy. State officials say it could do harm

In one of the first acts of his second term, President Trump is seeking to put his stamp on California water policy by directing the federal government to put “people over fish” and send more water from Northern California to the Central Valley’s farms and Southern California cities.

Trump issued a memorandum Monday ordering federal agencies to restart work to “route more water” from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to other parts of the state “for use by the people there who desperately need a reliable water supply.”

Trump directed his Interior and Commerce secretaries to report back on their efforts to implement the new policy by April 20. His order left unclear precisely how his administration will seek to carry out that objective.

President Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Tuesday.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

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Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said the approach outlined by the president could do substantial harm by putting water supplies at risk as well as protections for vulnerable fish species.

Nemeth said Trump’s order, on its own, does not change anything and that the current rules for operating California’s water delivery systems in the Central Valley — which were supported by the state and adopted by the Biden administration in December — remain in effect.

Presumably, the president is directing the agencies to again start the lengthy process of revising the framework that governs how the two main water delivery systems, the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project, are operated.

“The process just completed in December 2024 took over three years, using the best available science to ensure the projects are operating in concert to balance the needs of tens of millions of Californians, businesses and agriculture while protecting the environment,” Nemeth said. “To abandon these new frameworks would harm California water users and the protection of native fish species.”

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Trump similarly tried to alter California water regulations and policies during his first term. But when his administration adopted water rules that weakened environmental protections in the Delta, the state and conservation groups successfully challenged the changes in court.

That cleared the way for the Biden administration, working together with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, to develop the current plan and the supporting biological opinions, which determine how much water can be pumped and how river flows are managed in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The rules govern the operations of dams, aqueducts and pumping plants in the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, two of the world’s largest water systems, which deliver supplies to millions of acres of farmland and about 30 million people.

Pumping to supply farms and cities has contributed to the ecological degradation of the Delta, where the fish species that are listed as threatened or endangered include steelhead trout, two types of Chinook salmon, longfin smelt, Delta smelt and green sturgeon.

Trump said in his memorandum that his administration’s plan in his first term would have delivered “enormous amounts of water” but that because the state lawsuit led to a “catastrophic halt,” the additional water “flows wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.”

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Trump has repeatedly claimed that the ongoing wildfires in Southern California underscore why the state should be delivering more water south from the Delta.

In an interview with Fox News this week, Trump threatened to tie federal aid for wildfire recovery to whether California accepts changes in water policy. “I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” he said.

In a press briefing Tuesday, Trump said his administration will “take care of Los Angeles,” and he criticized the state for what he described as a lack of water flow.

“Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it. All they have to do is turn on the valve,” Trump said during a press briefing Tuesday. “They created an inferno.”

But water managers and experts have said Southern California’s cities are not currently short of water, pointing out that the region’s reservoirs are at record high levels following plentiful deliveries of supplies in 2023 and 2024.

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Newsom has said a change in water management in Northern California would not have affected the fire response. The governor’s office said on social media that California “pumps as much water now as it could under prior Trump-era policies,” and that “there is no shortage of water in Southern California.”

Even with ample supplies in reservoirs, local water systems were pushed to their limits in places as the fires rapidly spread, driven by strong winds.

When the L.A. water system lost pressure in parts of Pacific Palisades, some fire hydrants ran dry in high-elevation areas, hindering the firefighting effort. Newsom last week ordered an investigation into the loss of water pressure to hydrants, and the lack of water available from a reservoir in Pacific Palisades that was out of commission for repairs.

“While water supplies from local fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas, losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors,” Newsom said. “We need answers to how that happened.”

State officials have stressed that what Trump is proposing would do nothing to improve current water supplies in the Los Angeles Basin.

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But Nemeth said if the Trump administration rejects the current water delivery rules and reverts to the earlier 2019 framework, that “has the potential to harm Central Valley farms and Southern California communities that depend upon water delivered from the Delta.”

The current rules and biological opinions provide additional flexibility that allows operators of the pumping facilities to the Delta to “respond more nimbly to real-time conditions,” Nemeth said. “Farms and cities have the potential to gain additional water supply, while endangered species are protected.”

Trump has indicated he intends to try to weaken environmental protection measures, and has questioned why the state should keep certain flows in rivers to help species such as the Delta smelt, “a little tiny fish.”

 Delta Smelt swim around a holding tank.

Federally endangered Delta smelt that were hatched at the UC Davis Fish Conservation & Culture Lab swim around a holding tank after being transferred from the lab to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach in 2019.

(Allen Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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“It’s a fish that’s doing poorly anyway,” Trump said this week.

Peter Gleick, a leading water and climate scientist, said Trump’s order on California water policy “is what you get when you mix bluster, ignorance, and disinformation.”

“There are no ‘enormous amounts of water’ that can be redirected legally, economically, or environmentally to different users in California, but perhaps this executive order will make some of Trump’s supporters feel like he’s doing something,” said Gleick, co-founder and senior fellow of the Pacific Institute, a water think tank in Oakland.

“He doesn’t really have a clue how California water systems work,” Gleick said. “If he cared about California water, which he doesn’t really, he would pay attention to climate change.”

Recent scientific research has shown that global warming, driven by fossil fuel burning and rising levels of greenhouse gases, has become a dominant driver of worsening droughts in the western U.S.

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Examining the mix of factors behind the devastating wildfires, UCLA scientists said in an analysis last week that higher temperatures linked to climate change have contributed to the extreme dryness of vegetation in Southern California, one of the ingredients that is making the fires so intense.

“He doesn’t really have a clue how California water systems work. If he cared about California water, which he doesn’t really, he would pay attention to climate change.”

— Peter Gleick, co-founder and senior fellow of the Pacific Institute

Gleick said more than what the president says in “badly written executive orders,” people should watch what his appointees do — and how those actions affect efforts to improve water management.

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“It remains to be seen just how disruptive Trump’s environmental appointments will be,” Gleick said. “The biggest risk is that it’s just going to delay or derail efforts underway to solve these problems.”

Trump’s call for delivering more supplies to farming areas and cities adds a layer of complication to arguments over water management in the Delta that have long pitted agricultural water districts against environmental groups, fishing advocates and Native tribes.

In recent years, fish populations have suffered major declines in the Delta and San Francisco Bay.

The numbers of spring-run Chinook salmon have plummeted. And with fall-run salmon populations struggling, officials shut down the commercial and recreational fishing seasons the last two years.

The longfin smelt, a species that once was abundant, was listed as endangered last year under the federal Endangered Species Act.

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Environmental and fishing groups strongly criticized Trump’s water order.

Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Assn., said the previous rewriting of the rules during Trump’s first administration amounted to a “salmon extinction plan” because it deprived fish of critical flows they need to survive.

The closure of the salmon fishing season the last two years has already led to the loss of tens of thousands of fishing jobs, Artis said, and another weakening of protections “could further devastate fishing businesses, families, and communities.”

The group Save California Salmon said Trump’s directive continues a pattern of prioritizing the agriculture industry above the needs of other water users and the health of waterways and fish. The group also objected to the title of Trump’s memorandum, “Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California.”

“Protecting water quality, Delta smelt, salmon, and other species is not ‘radical environmentalism,’ ” said Josa Talley, a spokesperson for Save California Salmon.

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“It is a matter of protecting water supplies and economies. Rivers must have enough water to sustain businesses, prevent toxic algae blooms, and ensure clean water for downstream communities,” Talley said. “Salmon survival is tied to our health and the health of our rivers.”

Times staff writer Colleen Shalby contributed to this report.

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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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