SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The stage was set in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol this week, American flags, a desk adorned with the presidential seal. But President Trump canceled his signing of a major bipartisan housing bill, saying he refuses to sign it until the Senate passes the SAVE Act, which would tighten voting ID requirements. NPR senior contributor Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: How do you analyze the President's move here? Refusing to sign legislation aimed at making housing more affordable, then trying to force the Senate to do what he wants on voter IDs.
ELVING: It's hard to understand, Scott. Whether you're talking policy or politics, the country is increasingly distressed about the ordinary cost of living. Housing is among the biggest worries. So here's a bill supported by majorities in both parties - in both House and the Senate - signing it looks like a no-brainer. In baseball, it would be a hanging curveball begging for a trip to the bleachers. But instead, we get this dramatic last-minute cancellation.
And what did it accomplish? Does it get Trump's bill on voting procedure the votes it needs in the Senate? Did it get him closer? Does it at least unite his party on the issue? No. It shows, again, that Trump is focused not on what the country needs and wants but on his own agenda, especially his goal of changing how Americans vote. So instead of a feel-good moment and something for Republicans to run on this fall, Trump had to change the subject, talk once more about voter fraud, once again, without offering any proof of actual voter fraud affecting actual election outcomes.
SIMON: Three Democratic socialist candidates won Democratic House primaries in New York this week, all supported by New York's Mayor Mamdani. President Trump spoke at length about this yesterday at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is the greatest threat to our country since its founding, in my opinion, 250 years ago - what's happening right now. It's the greatest threat. People don't look at that. Oh, three people were elected. No, no. It's many more than three people.
SIMON: Do you think this line of attack is going to appeal to voters across the country?
ELVING: It will appeal to those who in 2026 continue to think communist encroachment is the biggest problem Americans face in their daily lives. And while that view is far less prevalent than it was when Trump was young in the 1950s and '60s, there are people who still talk about the global communist conspiracy as though nothing had happened in the five decades since.
SIMON: John Bolton, of course - President Trump's former national security adviser who became an ardent critic - pled guilty yesterday to mishandling classified information. He is one name on an extensive list of the president's adversaries that have been targeted by the Justice Department. What's your reaction?
ELVING: It seems clear Bolton broke the law with his notations from classified documents - just notations from documents. Although there is no evidence, he did this to serve the cause of some foreign power. It was wrong. It gave Trump a powerful weapon to use against a man who is a longtime hero to conservatives and defense hawks before he spent some time inside the first Trump White House and emerged as a whistleblowing critic.
SIMON: Finally, Ron, you know who's back on the news? Richard Nixon, kind of. Vice President Vance, speaking at Nixon's presidential library in California this week, said that Watergate would be, quote, "like a 12-hour news story if it happened now." He said the deep state took down Richard Nixon. I wonder if that's how you recall Watergate.
ELVING: JD Vance is 41, so he missed the reality of Watergate by a decade. But there are lots of us who remember the Nixon era from experience. Watergate was a case of bipartisan resistance to criminal acts committed by a president, elements of his staff and his reelection campaign. The acts were exposed by news reporting, first in a trickle and then in a torrent. And with the House poised to impeach Nixon in 1974, a contingent of Republican senators, led by the legendary conservative Barry Goldwater, told Nixon in the White House he would be removed from office, prompting Nixon to resign. If JD Vance thinks all of that - a matter of that magnitude wouldn't matter in today's Washington - we'd all better hope he is wrong.
SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving. Thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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