EXCLUSIVE — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) urged President Donald Trump on Wednesday not to veto a bipartisan housing bill, noting the overwhelming vote it got in the Senate earlier this week.
“It had 85 votes up here,” Thune told the Washington Examiner in an interview from his leadership suite. “I hope he doesn’t go there.”
Thune proceeded to describe the perceived benefits of the legislation, geared toward increasing the housing supply in the United States.
“I think it’s a big win, and I hope eventually he’ll find his way to sign it,” Thune said.
His comments come after Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony over his insistence that Congress pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election bill that has stalled in the Senate. In a Truth Social post, Trump called passing the election bill a “national emergency.”
The housing bill, which arrived on Trump’s desk after a 358-32 vote in the House, can still become law if Trump takes no action within 10 legislative days, but the president could also veto the bill, forcing a rare confrontation with the GOP-led Congress. Lawmakers can override the veto with a two-thirds majority in each chamber.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters Wednesday that he sees reconciliation, a party-line budget process, as the off-ramp to that showdown. The House, in particular, has been keen to pursue a pared-down version of the SAVE America Act that includes block grants to incentivize states on ID and other voting requirements.
But the Senate has been cool to another reconciliation bill, although Thune has not ruled out the possibility. If Republicans did move forward with reconciliation, the SAVE America Act provisions would be paired with Pentagon spending and deficit reduction measures.
“We’re willing to invest heavily in that, and House Republicans will put together a reconciliation bill, reconciliation 3.0, that will have that,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday.
Johnson added that he spoke with Trump earlier that morning and that the president wants to see progress on the bill and plans to delay the housing signing ceremony until he sees it.
“He has a window of time before he has to sign a bill, and he’s going to use a little bit more of that window of time, and we’re going to go through this together,” Johnson said.
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In the interview, Thune touted the housing legislation, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, as an example of “getting rid of red tape” and “making it easier for banks to lend.” The bill took months to craft, including contentious negotiations between the House and Senate.
In a separate Truth Social post, Trump downplayed its passage as a minor accomplishment.