As last week got underway, the Republican-led House easily passed a landmark housing bill on a 358-32 vote, following a similarly lopsided 85-5 vote in the GOP-led Senate. The stage was literally set for the most important bill signing ceremony of the year, right up until Donald Trump threw a tantrum, scrapped the plans and prioritized an anti-voting bill that lacks the support to pass.

In the days that followed, however, there was some question as to where things stood, exactly, with the housing bill (formally known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing bill).

On Thursday, Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan, the chair of the House Republican Conference, said the bill was on Trump’s desk. As it happens, that wasn’t quite right: Speaker Mike Johnson said he would send the legislation to the White House, but he’d wait until this week got underway.

“I’m going to send the bill over to him on Monday, and it will become law,” the Louisiana Republican told Fox News.

If we assume that the House speaker does as he promised, there are five possible outcomes — and despite Johnson’s prediction, there’s still some ambiguity as to which will actually happen.

Trump could sign the bill: At that point, the process will be complete, albeit one week later than expected.

Trump could kill the bill with a veto: The president hasn’t publicly suggested that he’s prepared to take such a step, but he hasn’t closed the door on the possibility, either.

Trump could veto the bill, only to have Congress override him: The lopsided vote totals in the House and Senate suggest the bipartisan proposal has more than enough support to clear the two-thirds threshold needed to override the president. That said, many GOP members remain Trump loyalists, and it’s far from clear whether they would ignore his wishes and vote in a way that would be seen by the White House as a slap in the face to the president.

Trump could let the bill become law without his signature: The Constitution dictates that a president has 10 days (not including Sundays) to sign or veto a bill once it reaches his or her desk. If a president chooses to do neither, the legislation automatically becomes law.

Trump could go with a pocket veto: The 10-day rule has always applied, though it comes with a catch. If Congress is adjourned when the 10 days run out, and the president still hasn’t acted, it doesn’t become law. Rather, it’s vetoed as part of a tactic known as a “pocket veto.”

That said, even this is more complicated than it might seem. As The New York Times summarized, “There are legal questions about whether this would happen during a congressional recess — when the chambers are out of session temporarily, as the House and the Senate are scheduled to be for 10 days beginning on July 3 — or only when Congress is adjourned at the end of a session, which will not happen until the end of the year.”

Which of these five outcomes is the most likely? It’s hard to say with confidence, though there was something the president said last Wednesday that caught my attention.

Asked by a reporter about a possible veto, Trump replied, “I said I’m not signing the housing bill. I want to see what happens with [the SAVE America Act]. Look, the housing bill is — I made billions of dollars with housing. I know housing better than anybody, maybe anywhere. It’s all about the interest rate. Lower the interest rates, you can have all the housing you want.

“But you have to understand, I don’t want to hurt people that own houses, too. These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses. They become rich. I don’t want to hurt them, either.”

In other words, Trump, who declared earlier this year that he doesn’t want to make housing more affordable, appeared to have substantive problems with the point of the bipartisan housing bill, irrespective of his fixation on his anti-voting proposal.

If the president meant what he said and follows through, then the House speaker’s confidence about Trump signing the bill into law may very well be misplaced. Watch this space.

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