Weichlein is the CEO of FMC: The Former Members of Congress Association.
Rep. Rodney Davis joined a number of his fellow Republicans on June 14, 2017, for an early morning baseball practice on a field in Alexandria, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. They were getting ready for an annual charity game that Republicans and Democrats have played for over 100 years, and the recurring time and place of their practice was not something anyone thought needed to be kept secret.
The first gunshots rang out about 30 minutes into practice, and if it had not been for two Capitol Police officers who happened to be at the field, there’s a good chance that Davis and most, if not all, of his colleagues would have been massacred that morning. The shooter, who does not deserve to have his name in print, had approached one of the members of Congress before practice began to make sure that those were indeed Republicans on the field that morning. In other words, had they been Democrats, he would have not pulled the trigger.
Davis has continued to represent Illinois in Congress despite that morning’s attempt on his life, and we are better off for it because he is a thoughtful legislator with integrity and commitment to making this country better. While performing this public service, he continues to routinely receive death threats, sometimes for being a Republican and other times for not being Republican enough. The other side of the political aisle is not exempt from the very real possibility of violence against them or their families. Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, said that threats are expected and come with the job. He should know, since his wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head and nearly died in 2011 while holding a campaign event in her district.
The number of death threats against members of Congress actively investigated by police reached an astounding 3,939 in 2017. By 2020, that number had more than doubled. The next year it almost tripled to nearly 10,000. That means that on average a member of Congress receives a message that the police classify as “disconcerting or a direct threat” every three weeks. And when I say “a member of Congress receives,” what I should say instead is “the staff of a member of Congress receives” because the person picking up the phone and being harassed, screamed at with vicious and profanity-laden language, and told in no uncertain terms that the world would be better off without them, is usually an intern or the most junior staff member.
Public service comes in many different forms, and the health of our communities depends on citizens stepping up to the plate, either by volunteering or by foregoing more lucrative private-sector opportunities. They pay a price, which is why it is called public service. However, in our age of riling each other up via social media and call-to-arms cable news, the sacrifice we are asking of our public servants is much too steep a cost. School board members across the country dread town hall meetings because they know they will be shouted at for hours.
Many need security to make it out the door to their cars, and quite a few are reminded that “we know where you live.” Police officers, who have to assess the danger of a situation in a split second in order to keep themselves and the public safe, are as a group lumped in with every bad apple who ever put on the uniform. And teachers have been fully thrust into the middle of the mask mandate debate, having to deal with angry parents on both sides of the dispute.
The great “I’ve done my part, but now I’m done with this crap” tsunami is headed our way, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We are losing members of Congress with years and years of experience and a track record of actually legislating. Congressional staffers at all levels are analyzing their quality of life and monthly paychecks and then updating their resumes as a result. Classroom sizes next year and for years to come will only get bigger because we’ll have fewer teachers for more students. Police officers are working more and longer shifts because there are fewer bodies to help keep our communities safe. And on school boards across the country, there are now countless opportunities for extremists from either side of the political spectrum to pick up vacated seats and transform what and how our children are learning.
It is crucial that we as a society figure out how to tone down our disagreements. We each have the responsibility to take the spotlight away from those whose business model is anger and division. It is time to come to our senses and stop empowering those who peddle tribalism and belligerence for personal gain, be they on the airwaves, internet or Capitol Hill. They are the ones who are actively stoking the flames of anger and threats, and they are the ones preventing Americans from living up to the best versions of ourselves.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
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.