This week, we are excited to share a video series featuring panel discussions from the Global Democracy Champions Summit co-hosted by Keseb and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. We hope this series will spur dialogue and action to advance inclusive democracy in the US and globally.
Citizens of both established democracies and the world’s most repressive regimes have become less free in recent years, with 8 in 10 people living in “Partly Free” or “Not Free” countries, according to the Freedom House. While democratic Ukraine’s fierce resistance has galvanized a steadfast international response, efforts by democracy champions to turn the tide on authoritarianism and build inclusive, multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy remain siloed – segmented by national boundaries.
On May 11 2022, Keseb and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University partnered to host the inaugural Global Democracy Champions Summit featuring over 400 registrants from 48 countries and 25 speakers from 12 countries. The Summit created a forum for democracy entrepreneurs, activists, academics, journalists, philanthropists, and policy makers to uplift compelling ideas, share insights across national boundaries, and create a global network of activists and civil society leaders committed to building inclusive, 21st century democracies.
Sessions from the Summit included: the state of global democracy; battling the effects of conspiracy theory and disinformation; building enduring people power; imagining a co-governance model; entrepreneurship as a vehicle for building inclusive and multigroup democracies; and the global youth movement for democracy.
Check out highlights from the Summit: Highlights Video: 2022 Global Democracy Champions Summit
We will share one panel discussion from the Summit each day of this week. Come back tomorrow to view “The State of Global Democracy.”
Please visit Keseb and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University to subscribe and receive news of future Democracy Champions opportunities.
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.