President Donald Trump cancelled his plan to sign a bipartisan affordable housing bill on Wednesday in an effort to pressure his fellow Republicans to pass a long-stalled package of US national voting restrictions that has aggravated party fissures and shown the limits of his power.
Trump has said he will join Senate Republicans at a closed-door lunch on Wednesday afternoon to lobby them to pass the voting measure called the Save America Act, his top legislative priority.
The act would require a photo ID to vote in federal elections and proof of US citizenship to register, while forcing states to turn over their voter registration rolls to the federal government.
“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Some Republicans indicated it may be a largely symbolic gesture: the housing bill can become law anyway if the president has not signed within 10 days, and lawmakers believe they have enough votes to overcome a presidential veto.
Trump’s determination may not be enough to push the Save America Act through.