Former President Donald Trump’s disregard of legitimate electoral outcomes has been on public display for the past week, conjuring memories of his first impeachment and reminding democracy advocates of his willingness to break democratic norms.
On Monday, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol held its second public hearing, as some Trump allies and members of his campaign team testified that they had advised him to not declare a victory on election night.
Trump nevertheless went on to claim the election had been stolen from him and held a “Stop the steal” rally the day Congress was scheduled to certify the election. The insurrection followed on the heels of that rally.
“Trump’s lies continued to stoke the anger of his staunchest supporters – anger that he would turn loose on the Capitol on January 6, in an effort to overturn the election he lost by force,” said Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn.
Others drew a parallel between Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud and his dealings with Ukraine in July 2019.
Trump’s first impeachment centered on an inquiry into his phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he appeared to have asked for assistance finding information on Joe Biden in exchange for military support. Although he was acquitted, Trump’s actions as president would continue to raise allegations of corruption, including possible tax evasion and election tampering.
In fact, the Jan. 6 hearings are the third attempt to investigate possible corruption by the former president.
“His entire presidency is a clear indication that he believes himself to be above the law,” said Lisa Gilbert, vice president and co-founder of the Not Above the Law Coalition. The call to Ukraine was “one of the numerous instances of [Trump’s] breaking of ethical norms and mores.”
McGeehee, who was executive director of the crosspartisan advocacy group Issue One before launching her own consulting firm, said “the Ukrainian call became part of a pattern where we had a president who really failed in that aspect” of putting the interests of the nation over his own.
While the Jan. 6 hearings are intended to hold him accountable in a political sense where the two impeachments failed, McGeehee believes that any attempt to criminally indict Trump could end disastrously for a deeply divided country. Trump’s supporters believe themselves to be on “a moral crusade” for the former president.
In the aftermath of the Trump presidency and in the midst of a pandemic, public trust is at a low point, with about three-fourths of U.S. adults concerned about American democracy, according to a recent poll by YouGov. McGeehee highlighted that fragile state of democracy, explaining that high inflation and extreme polarization are historical markers of instability but noted that Republicans are participating in the hearings too.
“There's a reason that this is bipartisan, this hearing,” she said. “You know, people on both sides of the aisle understand that it is incredibly problematic to tell lies in the public square, and to in turn, have those lies incite violence.”
Gilbert, who is also the executive vice president of progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, also found some solace in the committee’s work.
“I think that the importance of these hearings is showing bipartisan cooperation and sharing facts, shocking facts, with regular people,” she said, hoping the hearings will “lead to accountability for the bad actors, as well as reforms to improve our system moving forward.”
The committee had been planning to hold another hearing Wednesday but it was delayed by technical issues. The next hearing will be conducted Thursday.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.