US President Donald Trump, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, speak to the media on their way to a lunch meeting with Senate Republicans at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2026.
Saul Loebe | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump is changing the line of Republican candidates in his political head, complicating GOP efforts to show voters they can govern as the July 4 congressional recess approaches, critics say.
In the past two weeks, Trump has delayed his director of national intelligence, successfully derailed negotiations on a key expiring foreign surveillance program, and on Wednesday canceled at the last minute the planned signing of a bipartisan housing bill aimed at affordability.
He has repeatedly pressured Senate Republicans to file a filibuster to clear the way for a voter ID and noncitizen voting bill with no votes to pass. And even the Iran peace deal has become difficult for some Republicans to defend amid complaints that Congress is being left in the dark and the White House’s request for $87.6 billion to pay for the war. And often in his recent public speeches, Trump returns to the failure of the lake renovation.
The fallout has spread across Capitol Hill. The Senate, responding to the dysfunction, began recess on July 4 and left town on Wednesday night.
The House, meanwhile, is paralyzed as extremists have taken up Trump’s mantle and are refusing to vote on GOP priorities until the election bill, the SAVE America Act, is passed. Members of the House also returned to their constituencies early, although they will return next week.
What could have been a Republican victory on Wednesday — a bipartisan housing bill that works on private equity and would increase housing supply and affordability — instead turned into chaos.
The episodes are not the same. But they point to a pattern: Republicans are coming closer to winning. Trump is turning it into a test of credibility. Victory becomes another battle.
Some Republicans are now not saying that publicly.
“He was a danger,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., on Trump’s handling of the housing bill. “He had a good deal that he hadn’t signed and he couldn’t win.”
Bacon said Trump appears to be acting “quickly” and “by the seat of his pants,” making it difficult to pass a bill that “was a win for Congress and for him.”
“It was a mistake,” Bacon told CNBC on Thursday.
In response to a request for comment on Thursday, the White House addressed the president’s comments in the Oval Office on Wednesday night. After a meeting with NATO chief Mark Rutte, Trump defended his decision to stop the housing bill and criticized Democrats for opposing the SAVE America Act. He said that “we are doing very well” in procurement and that his administration is “reducing prices significantly.”
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., who also sponsored the housing bill that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, said the frustration among Republicans was real.
“You had 85% of the members of the House voting for it. You had 90% of the members of the Senate voting for it,” Fitzpatrick told CNBC. “You’re not going to get that in a post office, let alone buy whole houses.”
Fitzpatrick said the episode is “another example of the president using New York housing tactics as leverage to try to get more permits out.”
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Fitzpatrick said.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) attends a press conference in favor of the proposed “SAVE America Act,” which would require proof of US citizenship for voter registration and photo ID to vote, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, March 18, 2026.
Nathan Howard Reuters
Controversies in Congress
Not all Republicans are upset about the president’s recent actions. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in particular, has been supportive of the president and met with Trump at the White House on Thursday afternoon. Later Thursday, he referred the housing bill to the White House, a step in the process that could lead to Trump signing it, vetoing it or automatically becoming law without his signature.
And conservative House members echoed Trump, saying they would withhold support for any legislation until the Senate passes the SAVE America Act, a follow-up election bill that passed the floor in February.
“The president did the right thing yesterday by canceling the bill’s signing, unless the SAVE Act is attached,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, RS.C., at a Freedom Caucus press conference Thursday morning, talking about the housing bill. “I personally think we shouldn’t have another law until the Senate comes back on time. And they’re out for two weeks, which is weird.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., who is leading the GOP blockade on the House floor as a representative of the SAVE America Act, similarly suggested that the bill be attached to larger legislation, which must be passed, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or the National Defense Authorization Act.
But doing so could jeopardize both laws.
A key part of FISA, the spy bill that allows the US to spy on people outside the US, including when they communicate with Americans, expired earlier this month amid Democratic opposition to Trump’s interim director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte.
Pulte heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency and is a staunch Trump ally. His willingness to use his perch at the top of the FHFA to investigate Trump’s opponents has raised concerns among Democrats and some Republicans in Congress.
Trump, in response to those concerns, tapped U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton as permanent DNI, and lawmakers are trying to speed up the appointment process. But hours before Clayton testified before Congress last week, Trump posted on Truth Social that Clayton should stay home, in another effort to push through the SAVE America Act.
Democrats, meanwhile, have seized on Trump’s handling of the housing bill as evidence that the president doesn’t care about affordability, a key issue heading into the 2026 midterm elections as Republicans try to capture majorities in the House and Senate.
“Voters have seen this over and over again, that he doesn’t care,” Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told CNBC. “And that’s why they want better representation, and the main reason why we’re going to take back the House.”
Brittany Martinez, a former aide to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and executive director of Principles First, an alternative conservative Political Action Conference, said Trump’s recent actions lacked “strategic discipline.”
“Republicans had an opportunity to talk about unaffordability and housing — issues that voters care about — and instead the story became Trump canceling the House vote, spilling water around his intelligence campaign, and adding more instability to the FISA negotiations,” Martinez told CNBC.
“If Republicans continue to dismiss or downplay the problem of unaffordability instead of fixing it, voters will see it,” she said.
Matt Dallek, a professor at George Washington University who studies the modern conservative movement, said that “except for the Democrats who control any branch of Congress, Trump does not have a powerful enemy, so he seems to be starting to fight within his own party.”
“When it comes to midterm messaging, Republican infighting can cause the party to lose focus and see the real prize of controlling Congress,” Dallek said.
Members of the National Guard stand guard along the perimeter fence of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, June 23, 2026.
Tyler M. Andrews | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Vanity projects
The problems are not limited to Capitol Hill. Trump has spent much of his political capital renovating Washington’s most visible public spaces around his image.
Trump has been focused in recent weeks on the reflection pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, following the controversy over adding his name to the Kennedy Center and the construction of the White House football stadium that Trump ordered before running into legal trouble.
Trump personally pushed to renovate the lake ahead of America’s 250th birthday, including directing that the bottom be painted with what he called the “blue American flag.” The project was intended to be a show of patriotism and a visible symbol of national renewal.
Instead, it became another political topic. After repairs came in more than $4 million over budget, according to state contracts, the pool was hit by algae blooms, and the new liner appeared to be peeling. Trump accused people of destroying unspecified property, said people damaged the line, said arrests have been made and ordered that the lake be fenced off.
“It’s such a waste of taxpayers’ money… how much will it cost to fix a problem that didn’t exist in the first place,” Martinez told MS NOW on Tuesday. “He can’t fix the algae, so he threatens the handcuffs.”
Democrats also participated in the episode to question the administration and seek answers about contracts, costs and project execution.
–Emily Wilkins contributed to this report.
