Transcript of Senator Warren on Trump Attacking Affordability Agenda

Der Fußball-Sommer ist da! Jetzt heißt es mitfiebern, mitjubeln und sogar mitspielen! Klick aufs Banner und werde mit REWE Bonus, dem Vorteilsprogramm der REWE App, selbst zum Matchwinner! Gewinne dein Elfmeter-Duell mit Bo, dem stärksten REWE-Torwart aller Zeiten, und sicher dir damit wöchentlich deinen Fan-Coupon sowie die Chance auf attraktive Sachpreise. Also los, schnapp dir jetzt deinen Fan-Bonus in der REWE App! Nur bis zum 18.7. Donald Trump is spiraling in the Oval Office as Iran has made it clear it is not having any meetings with the United States in the next 24 to 48 hours. Donald Trump, in order to manipulate the markets, claimed earlier in the day that Iran has called, they want to do a meeting. And this followed Barack Ravi, Donald Trump's personal stenographer, yesterday also posting the United States said it had productive conversations with Iran after the United States struck Iran twice and Things are going super well, is what Ravid said yesterday. I'll tell you what he said earlier in the day as well. But Trump posted, Iran has requested a meeting. It will take place tomorrow in Doha. And then you had Barak Ravid post, uh, update: Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will depart today for Doha, where they will meet on Tuesday with the Prime Minister of Qatar and additional senior officials to discuss talks with Iran.

Just pause there. Do you know what's missing from that sentence? Iran. There's no mention of Iran. So we're sending Kushner and Whitcoff to speak to mediators in Doha, and Iran's not showing up. But the way Bravid tried to post it or write about it, and other senior officials, not of Iran, of Qatar, of other countries. On Wednesday, the technical teams of the United States and Iran are expected to hold separate meetings with the mediators from Qatar and Pakistan, according to a senior White House official. And notice there, it doesn't say they're meeting together. It says the technical teams are expected to hold separate meetings. Do you see the writing to make it seem like there's meetings taking place, but there's actually no meetings taking place? Here's what Iran's foreign minister said. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson has said the following: no talks are currently scheduled for the In the coming days, there will be no negotiations and no meetings at any level with the United States. They made it very, very clear. Yet on News Nation, another outlet that Donald Trump goes to, to, I think, spread a lot of this propaganda. Um, they write, a diplomat with knowledge of the talks tells me that tomorrow, Tuesday, Whitcoff and Kushner will meet in Doha with the Qatari prime minister and other officials in order to discuss negotiations with Iran.

The following day, technical teams from both the US and Iran will meet separately with Qatari and Pakistani mediators. Iran says that ain't happening, but Trump manipulated the markets. They were up significantly today. Had there been those strikes, uh, by the United States before the markets closed on Friday, you would have seen the market absolutely tank. This is unadulterated market manipulation, folks. Isn't it just so obvious what is happening? So what's Donald Trump saying? You know, he's got to move on. He's gotta do the WMD, weapon of mass distraction. So Donald Trump goes, the reflecting pool, which suffered great damage due to the vandals and radical left scum that hate our country, has been for the past 2 days in full operation. He talks about a 350-foot gash from the sharp knives by these vandals, but everything is perfect. And if anyone attacks them, they will get 10 years for attacking it in jail. If you attack the reflecting pool with a knife, you're gonna get 10 years. So anyway, then Donald Trump, Goes into the Oval Office and people are like, you want to talk about this? Like, no.

Okay.

What do you want to talk about, Donald? I want to talk about the Save America Act, which is his voting suppression act. Um, okay. What about the housing bill?

Okay.

You want to talk about the, are you going to sign the housing bill, Donald, the housing affordability bill, which was passed on a bipartisan basis. Then Donald Trump's like, it's a big yawn. It's a housing affordability. It's a big yawn. Watch what Trump says. Let's play it.

100, 300, 400, 500%. You know that.

But will you sign that housing bill?

I have not. It hasn't been sent to me yet. It's coming, I understand. And then I'll make— then I'll make a deal. Here's what I would like to sign much more than a bill. That big deal. It's a yawn. Some people say it's wonderful to me compared to the Save America Act. Just about everything is a big yawn.

Okay. So a reporter says, all right, Donald, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani said that he's open to being the poster child for socialist candidates because he's delivering for the American people. And regardless of what label you wanna give him, shouldn't we care about the results? To which Donald Trump says, the big, he's a communist. And the biggest threats to this country, bigger than World War I, World War II and 9/11 are these communists like Mamdani, and that is the biggest threat. I mean, just think about how dangerous the rhetoric from this psychopath is. Here, play this clip.

It really topped everything by a lot today.

Yeah, Mr. President, Zahra Mamdani said in an interview this week that he was open to being the poster child for socialist candidates. Are you worried about more socialist candidates across the United States?

It's a big threat to our nation, actually. Because it's not socialism, it's really communism. They use the word social democrat because it sounds so nice, but it's really communism you're talking about. I think it's the biggest threat to our nation there is, maybe since our founding. That includes World War I, World War II, September 11th. It includes the Pearl Harbor attack. I think this is the biggest threat. To our nation. People will smile when I say that, but the smart people are going to say, you know, he's probably right. It's basically introducing communism into the United States of America. There's never been anything so dangerous.

Then Donald Trump is asked, so what are your plans? Do you have a plan for the housing bill? And Trump's like, look, look, knock, knock, knock, knock. No one knows housing like me. I got very rich off of— no, no one knows housing like me. And by the way, one of the reasons why Donald Trump does not support the housing bill, in addition to the fact that it's not his idea, it has his name on it, is because he views housing as a zero-sum game. And that if you help first-time homeowners or others who can't afford, Trump's view is you're taking housing away from him and his private equity buds. That's how he feels about it. Listen to what he has to say. Play this clip. What are your plans for the housing bill, Mr. President?

I don't know. I think it's so unimportant by comparison by compared to the Save America Act. I think the Save America Act is exactly what it says. It's saving America from crooked elections. And the housing bill is a bill that can get approved. They worked on it long and hard. It's very bipartisan. That means the Democrats like it. I think it's maybe even— it's probably maybe more that way. They're getting things that I wouldn't necessarily agree to. Nobody knows more than housing in the history of the presidency. Nobody did well like me in housing. I made a lot of money. I made a lot of money with housing. But when I look at that bill, it's a bill. But when I look at the Save America Act, it's about saving America. And I'd like to have the Save America Act editor, and that's probably not going to happen. Because we have 4 Republican senators, maybe 5, that just won't vote for it. It's crazy. Somebody that— Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. Nobody's done more for Alaska than me. She's Trump deranged. What can I tell you?

Isn't it notable that just a few days back, Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump's press secretary propagandist, said tomorrow at 12:00 PM on Capitol Hill, Trump will sign into law the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history. This bipartisan bill includes policies long championed by the president. It cuts necessary red tape, helps increase housing supply, and limits the ability of large institutional investors to purchase single-family homes. As the president has said, homes should be owned by American families, not large corporations. President Trump promised to lower housing costs, and he is delivering, making it easier for every family to achieve the American dream of homeownership. Tomorrow's historic bill signing is another promise. Promises kept. Now Trump on the housing big housing bill. Big deal. Big yawn. And hey, Donald, you're done with the market manipulation. Now you want to trash housing affordability. I want to bring in Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren to talk about that housing bill. Let's bring in Senator Warren. I have a lot more questions I want to ask her as well. Senator, so great to see you. You know, so many Americans, I think, were like, wow, bipartisanship.

We have Senator Warren and Senator Scott completely opposite ends of the so-called political spectrum or whatever. But we've done a housing bill. Private equity can be limited in scooping up these homes, especially from first-time homeowners. This is going to be great. And I said, okay, I'm going to do a story this morning that says great work, Donald Trump, housing bill, affordability, great work, Senate. I was going to do that story. And then the guy doesn't show up, blows it up, turns it about himself. And I go, what?

No.

Well, it's so predictable, yet so unfortunate that that's the system that we're in. Talk to us about it from your perspective.

So, so first of all, let me just set the stage for you. You know, we've worked on this thing for a year and a half because we are in a housing crisis. Prices are too high. They're too high for homebuyers. They're too high for renters. The average age of a first-time homebuyer in America now is 40 years old. Because of how high housing prices are. So what has Congress done for 35 years? They say, damn, price of housing has gone up. And that's it. That's, that's been how the United States Congress has responded. So started putting people together and saying, put an idea in the, in the box here that would help lower the cost of building new housing. Just renovating existing housing. And somebody pitched in something on about how you could smooth out some environmental regulations.

Cool.

What else you got? And somebody else pitched in something that said, you know what, there's this requirement on, on manufactured housing. You have to have a chassis in it. You take that requirement out and it becomes $10,000 cheaper to build one.

Cool.

I got together with Senator Kennedy to do something we call carrots and sticks. Federal government gives a lot of money to cities all around America every year. And basically we said, we don't care how you do it, but if you're building more housing, you get more of that money. And if you're not building housing, you get less of that money. Right. I had an innovation fund that said, if you'll really go in on ways to lower the cost of building, we, the federal government, will be a good partner and put up money to help buy an elementary school or, you know, something sexy like new sewage treatment plant. You know, the things you need when you're building more. So we put all those together. There are nearly 50 of them. And then we have the private equity piece to keep private equity boxed out of residential housing. We get this bill that passes the Senate. Final passage last Monday. We could go right now tonight. Passes the Senate 85 to 5, passes the House on Tuesday night. Woo-hoo! By, I think, an even bigger margin. Then it's Wednesday morning and Donald Trump has announced the night before he's coming over to Congress because he's going to have lunch with the Senate Republicans.

And while he's here, he's going to sign the bill. So they lay out the red carpet. And I mean that literally. They build the stage. They put the flags up on the stage. They have the fancy desk and the chair and all the Republicans are out there, man. They're tweeting like crazy about, I'm getting my thing in the bill and my view is good. Success has many mothers. Let it happen. I think this is great. Democrats are tweeting about it, too. And then 2 hours ahead of time, Donald Trump says, I'm not coming. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to sign it. Not going to sign it. So he hasn't vetoed it, hasn't signed it. So that brings us up to now. And what he says now is that it just doesn't matter. So we got all these ways to lower costs on the price of housing. And Donald Trump just doesn't care. And he openly says so. The guy who ran for president saying, "I will lower costs on day one." Remember that? Ran for a year, said, "I will lower costs on day one." That is the guy who now we're on day 500 and whatever.

Cost of groceries is up, cost of gasoline is up, cost of utilities is up, cost of healthcare is up. Oh, and the cost of housing is up. We've got a bill here that could help bring down one of those costs. And he says he just doesn't care. Not he's mad, not there's something bad in it. He just doesn't care. I, I really am stunned.

You know, when I hear him though, and yeah, he says that, but some of the other stuff he seems to say though to me is equally telling, where he seems to view housing like so many things as a zero-sum game, and that if you're going to be giving housing to new homeowners and helping people get housing, that in his mind that's taking it away from him and his people and his crew. And so it actually seems in a way to me that his bluff got called on housing. Like, we've seen a lot now in this Epstein Files. It reaches its conclusion. You see that he was, he was the cabal, he was the cover-up to begin with. He hates the JCPOA but never had an alter— healthcare, he never had a plan. And so you take this to its logical conclusion, and he actually seems that he's doesn't want housing. Like, to me, it's even deep, you know. And now they're trying to say, well, it was because we want Save America, which is the Voter Suppression Act. But it actually seems his intentions are revealed, that he actually doesn't want new housing because he views that as a harm to his rich friends.

You know, it's really interesting how you would, you would draw that connection, because look at what happened. Why are all those costs that I was just talking about up?

Right?

It's not gravity. It's not, you know, like, oh, that's just how two molecules react when they bump into each other. It's policies that he followed. It's his tariff policies have driven up costs. His energy policies have driven up costs. Lordy, his healthcare policies have driven costs through the roof for millions of Americans. And his bombing halfway around the world and closing the Strait of Hormuz has driven up costs. All of his policies have pushed costs up. And as you say, here is the one time I hadn't thought about it the way you describe it. We actually call his bluff and say, here's a way you could bring down costs, but it's bringing down costs for working people. It's getting more apartments built. It's getting more manufactured housing built, which is often the most affordable. It's getting access to more single-family homes. And Trump, I guess, is not seeing a big profit opportunity for the Trump family or for the— his close-in buddies. And all I can say is I sure hope we keep talking about this because Donald Trump has forfeited any right to say that he cares about the economic circumstances of hardworking American families.

He's proven he doesn't.

Right. I mean, if you even look at the horrific, catastrophic consequences of this unlawful war in Iran, I mean, we even see This past weekend, what seemed to be more and more market manipulation yet again. 4:05, 4:10, markets close, we bomb Iran. And I could just predict— it's so bizarre to be able to predict these things. And you go, okay, all right, on Sunday, once the futures markets are about to open, I bet you— I say this on my show— we'll get a post. I know the guy who's even going to do it. Like, it's so obvious. I go, Barack Ravid from Axios, he's going to post, we made very good productive talks, and that Things are going to go great. And boom, an hour before the futures market, there they go. There's the Pope. And Iran's like, we don't even know what you're talking about, but okay. And then the market reacts to it. And, you know, it goes from what, you know, could have been a horrible market. The American people aren't benefiting from this. But then it's all of a sudden, boom, it's green. You know, and it's just like people and people see it now and they're like, What are you even doing?

What is this?

Right. You know, but the part that keeps going forward is the Trump corruption. Just make no mistake, he has time and attention to do two things. One is to keep these pieces going where, oh, he's cutting another deal and it just turns out his sons will make millions of dollars off it. Right? Oh, he sends his son-in-law to the Middle East to negotiate peace, and while he's there, he's going to sell his deals for a sovereign wealth fund, right? He's going to buddy up with the Qataris while they give him his $400 million jet, his crypto, right? A place to do bribery right out where anybody can see it. So all of that continues, right, on, on one axis. And the other axis is He spends his time on the details of his golden-crusted ballroom, his triumphal arch, his reflecting pool. Those are the two things— use the presidency to, to just grift, just to make as much money personally as he can, plus use it for vanity projects, things that he thinks are going to reflect well on him. And the American people, folks who have fallen behind again this year since Donald Trump has been president, families have fallen further and further behind.

Inflation is up. Cost of all those goods is up. And like I said, Donald Trump just doesn't care. It's about making money for himself and his buddies. And it's about flattering Donald Trump's ego. And those are the, it seems to me, the only two things he cares about anymore.

And before we go, one of the things that I used to respect about the Senate is the seriousness with which work was approached. And you may have a different approach than, say, a Republican senator, but you weren't running Enron or Bernie Madoff's enterprise as a, you know, who was in leadership. I mean, was. Here's our— here are the right numbers. Here's our approach. Here's their approach. Can we reach compromise? That's at least what I grew up with, what I thought. Now what it seems is the United States Senate, when it's controlled by Republicans, is like Enron in its last days, or like the Madoffs. And it is literally used— cooking the books and using fake numbers that aren't real. $21 trillion have— it's completely fake. It's not, you know, outrageously fake numbers. And then when you are conducting these hearings and cross-examining the different nominees and people in Trump's orbit and you're asking them very basic questions, what is inflation currently? Is that more or is that less than the— oh, well, Madam— Madam Senator, I'm just asking is more. Now, here is wage growth. Is it more or is it less than wage growth?

Well, just can you answer the question?. And so the idea that we, that this whole thing, I think in the American people see it and you cross-examine these Trump witnesses and expose it on a weekly basis. That's what's good. It's like a, it's like Bernie Madoff. It's like a Trump organization being run by your Republican colleagues.

Yeah. You know, on this kind of thing, the, I've gotten to where I do, I just ask the most Basic facts. These aren't things like, well, there's a Democratic view of this and a Republican view of it. I really was the one you're talking about here. I'm asking the guy who wants to be the head of the Council of Economic Advisers. And do you know what the statute actually says? The job of this person is to give the president of the United States independent economic advice. Make sure that the president knows what reality is. So I start him with the most basic question: What's inflation running at today? And, you know, it's right there. You can see it. It's right there. You can see it. We had just gotten the reports from the federal government. It's there. And blah, blah. The guy cannot give an answer. So I give him the answer. And is that higher or lower than it was when Donald Trump was sworn in? Can't give an answer. I give him the answer. So he said, higher or lower? It's, it's this— it's like pulling teeth. And, and the importance of that is this means that one of the people whose legal responsibility is to sit near the president and say, Mr. President, I know you want to do this thing, But we've got a problem over here, and here's what the problem looks like.

This is a guy who cannot even answer a basic factual question. I think that disqualifies him for this job, and I am deeply, deeply worried about the fact that that's exactly who Donald Trump picks to be his economic advisor. I think of it as just insulating Donald Trump from reality. That's what he wants, and he'll pull it off as long as the Republicans let him get away with it.

Well, are you going to let him get away with it or what? Uh, well, I mean, just talk very briefly before we go about the, you know, what this looks like differently if Democrats take control.

Oh, come on. Midterms, midterms, midterms. If Democrats take control, some things change dramatically. The first one is that we are the ones who become the chairs of the committee and we are the ones who run the two chambers. That means we bring things to a vote that we want to bring to a vote. That means that we conduct investigations that we want to conduct. That means we get subpoenas to get people in to answer questions and That is huge. The second part, if we can get a majority in the House and the Senate, please, if we can do that, it means we can actually start passing some laws that are good for the American people. We can undo some of the terrible stuff that's in the Trump budget on health care, on grotesque tax gifts to billionaires and a trillionaire. And we can start forcing these— the Trump administration to actually spend the money that Congress has told them to spend on things like research and on health care and, and on transit. You know, the things that actually keep our country going. So It's, it's not as good as having the House, the Senate, and the White House.

That's, I hope, what we're going to do in 2028. But getting majorities in the House and the Senate in this next midterm can make a huge difference. Huge.

Senator Warren, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate all you do.

Thank you.

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