Happy Wednesday. I’m Isaac Saul and today, I am thrilled to be writing about some policy. Not reflecting pools. Not culture wars. Not real wars. Just a good old-fashioned piece of bipartisan legislation with pros and cons and policy implications to explore. We’re deconstructing Congress’s housing bill, which President Trump could be signing any moment — or maybe not!

Also: A reader question about Tulsi Gabbard and Anthony Fauci and a look back at a medieval dancing epidemic. It’s a 14-minute read. 

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Quick hits.

1. The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that a man incarcerated in Louisiana cannot sue prison officials who forcibly shaved his head despite his religious exemption claim. (The ruling) In a separate 6–3 ruling, the Court limited noncitizens’ ability to bring lawsuits in U.S. courts over alleged violations of international law. (The ruling)
2. Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier won Democratic nominations for Congress in two New York City districts. Additionally, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman, and state Assemblyman Micah Lasher won the Democratic primary in the race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D). (The results) In Maryland, state Del. Adrian Boafo won the Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D). (The result) In Utah, former Rep. Ben McAdams won the Democratic primary for a newly drawn House seat. (The result)
3. The Senate voted 50–48 to approve a war powers resolution, which passed the House earlier in June, directing President Donald Trump to withdraw the U.S. armed forces from Iran. Four Republican senators voted with Democrats to pass the resolution, which does not have the force of law. (The vote)
4. The Justice Department announced charges against approximately 450 people, including 90 medical professionals and roughly 300 Medicaid recipients, for alleged healthcare fraud. (The charges)
5. At least 45 people in France have died, including 40 by drowning, amid a record-breaking heat wave. (The heat)

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Today’s topic.

Congress’s housing bill. On Tuesday, the House passed a comprehensive housing affordability bill 358–32, sending the measure to President Donald Trump to sign into law. The bill, titled the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, seeks to increase housing supply by rolling back construction regulations, expanding financing options, and restricting institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes in most circumstances. The Senate voted 85–5 to pass the bill on Monday. After originally scheduling a signing ceremony today, Trump announced he would cancel the signing until Congress passes the SAVE America Act. He has not indicated that he would veto the bill.

Back up: The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act combines elements of housing packages passed separately by the House and Senate. On May 20, the House approved a prior version of the bill in a 396–13 vote. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC), Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-AR), and Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) led the negotiations and worked to reconcile the two versions. 

In total, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act encompasses nearly 60 provisions related to housing supply, manufactured housing, mortgage financing, rural housing, veteran housing, and community banking. Notably, the bill bars institutional investors from buying more than 350 single-family homes. Institutional investors — defined as those with at least 350 homes — own roughly 3% of single-family rentals nationwide, according to a 2024 Government Accountability Office analysis.

Sen. Warren emphasized the bill’s restrictions on corporate real estate investors. “It will make sure families own those homes — not giant corporate landlords looking to jack up the rent and squeeze out every nickel of profit they can,” Warren said on the Senate floor. On the Republican side, Sen. Scott touted the incentives to increase supply as drivers to lower costs. “This bill is the result of years of work to lower costs, expand housing supply, cut red tape, protect taxpayers, and help more Americans achieve the dream of homeownership,” Scott said in a statement. 

Below, we’ll take a look at what the right and left are saying about the housing bill. Then, Executive Editor Isaac Saul gives his take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is mixed on the bill, with some arguing it unwisely targets institutional investors. 
• Others praise Congress for taking action on home prices.
• Still others say the U.S. doesn’t actually have a housing crisis. 

In City Journal, Shawn Regan wrote about “the big problem with Congress’s housing bill.”

“The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act aims to cut red tape and encourage construction, with broad support from both parties. Unfortunately, lawmakers also appear to agree on an unhelpful idea: that large institutional investors are to blame for the housing shortage. This misdiagnosis will, if acted upon, discourage the construction of new rental homes and make the housing shortage worse,” Regan said. “The target of the policy is the growing build-to-rent sector — essentially the single-family equivalent of apartment complexes. In build-to-rent, a single investor owns a large number of single-family homes, all built with the explicit purpose of renting.”

“Institutional investors — pension funds, real-estate investment trusts, and large asset managers — play a central role in financing these projects. Restricting their ability to own rental homes therefore risks choking off investment in a segment of the market that is actually adding supply,” Regan wrote. “Whereas smaller landlords tend to acquire existing properties to rent out, large investors frequently finance projects that add housing inventory. Many build-to-rent developments simply wouldn’t exist without institutional financing.”

In Blaze Media, Christopher Bedford suggested “corporate America hates this housing bill for one reason.”

“Private equity has targeted entry-level homes in fast-growing markets, paying cash and converting starter neighborhoods into permanent rental pools. The D.C. commentariat loves to point out that institutional ownership is ‘small’ nationally. That argument obscures the real numbers. The harm is local, concentrated, and immediate — exactly where young families are trying to buy,” Bedford said. “[The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is] the first tiny step Congress has taken in years to confront inflated home prices and the corporate churn making starter homes harder to buy. It’s exactly the kind of policy populist conservatives have wanted for years.”

“Corporate ownership of single-family homes isn’t a passing blip. It’s a growing problem — and one Congress can start clipping now,” Bedford wrote. “‘My administration,’ Trump declared in February, ‘will take decisive action to stop Wall Street from treating America’s neighborhoods like a trading floor and empower American families to own their homes.’ One bill won’t fix the housing market problem. But Congress can take a first step — and prove it still knows the difference between market orthodoxy and the American dream.”

In Cato, Norbert J. Michel and Jerome Famularo argued “there’s no national housing affordability crisis.”

“[The ROAD to Housing Act] is built around the assumption that the United States is experiencing a historically unprecedented housing affordability crisis… The evidence for that claim is far weaker than commonly suggested,” Michel and Famularo said. “Many Americans understandably look at rapidly rising home prices and conclude that housing has become dramatically less affordable. Some conventional metrics appear to reinforce this view. In particular, house price-to-income ratios have risen substantially over the past several decades. 

“But these measures often provide a misleading picture of affordability. For instance, simple price-to-income ratios ignore important changes in housing quality and size over time, as the typical American home has become substantially larger and more amenity-rich than in previous decades,” Michel and Famularo wrote. “High home prices may create sticker shock, but… measures tied to actual payment burdens and household balance sheets show no indication of a crisis.”

What the left is saying.

• Many on the left view the bill as a win for progressive housing policy. 
• Some question a provision barring private equity from buying homes.
• Others say the bill is a starting point, but future legislation must go further. 

In The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner praised “Elizabeth Warren’s amazingly progressive housing bill.”

“The 303-page legislation creates new programs and federal money for housing construction, promotes manufactured housing, while streamlining zoning and permitting obstacles and improving access to mortgages. A key measure aimed at private equity prevents Wall Street from buying large numbers of single-family homes,” Kuttner said. “The substantive strategy of one part regulatory constraints on predatory landlords, one part new federal housing money, and one part eased zoning and other bureaucratic restrictions also perfectly chimed with the ‘Mamdani moment.’ As a fellow progressive, New York’s new mayor has embraced a very similar formula. This is leading from the left at its best.”

“The value of this legislation is not just on the merits. It’s a reminder that a progressive form of bipartisanship is still possible, given leadership on the Democratic side, and it moves the public agenda in a progressive direction,” Kuttner wrote. “Developer and private equity groups have been frantically working key House leaders to water it down. But given broad Republican support for the Senate version, most key provisions are likely to survive intact.”

In Vox, Eric Levitz suggested “the crackdown on corporate landlords just got more counterproductive.”

“[The bill] would, among other things, erode regulatory obstacles to homebuilding and encourage investment in affordable housing. The bill’s Democratic co-sponsor, Elizabeth Warren, deserves credit for advancing these worthy causes,” Levitz said. “And yet, this legislation also includes a provision that would actually reduce the supply of housing, increase residential segregation, and mandate mass displacement — all to prevent ‘private equity’ from building too many houses. Put differently, the policy would make housing in the United States less affordable for working-class Americans — and less profitable for large corporations.”

“Corporations do not buy houses to burn them down, but rather, to rent them out. Thus, whenever institutional investment subtracts a home from the buyers’ market, it generally adds one to the rental market. Partly for this reason, corporate investment in single-family homes tends to reduce rents,” Levitz wrote. “In this way, institutional investment in existing homes presents a trade-off: It makes rental housing marginally more affordable, while pushing home prices marginally higher. If one’s primary concern is minimizing the number of Americans who cannot afford housing, this is a decent swap: Americans who can’t qualify for a mortgage are more likely to be cost-burdened than prospective homebuyers.”

In The Los Angeles Times, Carlos Fernando Avenancio-León said “expanding [housing] access isn’t enough.”

“[The bill is] one of the most ambitious housing packages in decades. Much of the conversation has centered, understandably, on supply: how to build more homes, reduce shortages and expand access to ownership. That matters. But supply is only part of the problem,” Avenancio-León wrote. “Take California: In a state defined by severe housing shortages, extreme home prices and persistent racial gaps in homeownership, the challenge is not just helping families buy homes, but ensuring they can keep up with rising costs. Sustaining homeownership deserves the same attention as expanding access to it.”

“The questions policymakers need to confront are not only about how to help people buy homes, but how to ensure those people can keep them without falling into financial distress. Too often, policymakers are laser-focused on the first half of the equation: expanding access. Our findings point to the other half, when ownership’s fixed costs, repair risks and cash-flow pressures begin to take their toll,” Avenancio-León said. “The bill gets some things right… But the larger risk is that a housing agenda focused mainly on supply and access will only address one facet of the problem.”

My take.

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• I’m not sure this bill is really necessary, and its provisions are a mixed bag.
• I don’t think federal legislation is going to solve the housing affordability problems in most of the country, and banning institutional investors will actually be counterproductive.
• Still, it’s remarkable that this bill passed with bipartisan support — especially under a Republican president.

Executive Editor Isaac Saul: I’ll be honest: I’m still trying to figure out if this bill should exist at all.

Housing affordability is an undeniable issue, and a salient one for voters. Home prices went up 60% between 2019 and 2025 and are still rising, while renters across the country are feeling squeezed by throwing an increasingly large share of their income towards housing. This bill combines aspects of roughly 60 measures from across the political spectrum to try to tackle this issue. 

Yet the fundamental purpose of this bill is to solve a national housing shortage, which I’m not sure actually exists. What we have, more precisely, is an affordable housing shortage in select regions of the country, and metropolitan areas in particular. There is no housing shortage in Decatur, Illinois, even if there is one in Brooklyn, New York. If you want to live on $432/month, you can. It just might mean living somewhere you don’t want to live, with fewer in-person career opportunities. That’s obviously not an attractive prospect for many people, but I think it should narrow our focus on defining where and what kind of new housing we want. 

In addition to the nuances of what a “housing shortage” actually means, some things Congress just can’t change. One reason homes are expensive right now is that interest rates were at or near 0% for the better part of the last 20 years, meaning that a lot of people are unwilling to sell their homes and lose their favorable mortgages, constricting supply. This seller’s constraint is just as big a problem as restrictions on home construction, if not larger. Also, the homes modern Americans want are increasingly large and feature-rich, making new builds more expensive than the homes our parents and grandparents sought out.

And when you get into the details of this bill, I have a hard time sussing out whether or not it is a net win. I’m bullish on parts of it, skeptical of others, and I’m confident a few of its provisions are a net negative or distracting.

I’m bullish on the proposals that make manufactured housing easier to build, speed up environmental reviews, and generally push to reward localities for fewer regulations. Federal law currently defines manufactured homes as not just manufactured offsite, but “transportable” and “built on a permanent chassis.” They currently cost about half as much per square foot as site-built homes, and this bill removes the chassis requirement, which could meaningfully expand where they are permitted. This is a genuine, clear-cut win. The bill would also make investing in public-welfare projects that provide affordable housing easier for banks, another win. Each of these lives at the intersection between the Abundance left and the supply-side right, and we should all be encouraged when Congress shows us it can still do big, bold things with a bipartisan consensus. 

I’m far more skeptical of the carrot-and-stick approach of federal dollars going to local municipalities to build more and being cut for those that don’t. Supporters of this approach could point to a 2025 Goldman Sachs report, which found that relaxing land-use regulations could add 2.5 million housing units over the next decade. But again: Where those houses are built, and at what price, matters far more than whether they are built at all. 

Congress has tried to address this by tying the entitlements in Section 106 to Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) recipients, which are cities with 50,000 or more people. This is a good way to target the bill, and other provisions — like the $200 million innovation fund — are competitive grant programs that probably won’t apply to places (particularly rural areas) without shortages. Yet the risk here is that the pork-barrel approach is going to encourage local leaders to act in ways that their constituents may not want and that may not be necessary. 

To put it differently: We need more density in urban and metropolitan areas with jobs, public transit, and office buildings; but what about places like Austin, Texas, which have already addressed their housing shortage and now have too much supply? Should they be able to collect federal dollars to keep building even when they don’t need to? A very possible outcome, to me, is that these federal dollars end up supporting housing where it isn’t needed, or that the kind of housing built in response isn’t the kind that’s in demand. 

The part of the bill I’m confident is a net negative is perhaps the one that’s driven most commentary: The ban on institutional investors. Managing Editor Ari Weitzman already broke this down a few months ago, but the “corporations buying up housing” narrative is mostly a boogeyman. Institutional investors own just roughly 0.65% of single-family homes, according to most estimates, and the institutional investors who buy up build-to-rent developments are actually easing the housing crunch by converting unlivable properties into rentals. I get why blaming big corporations for everything is easy, especially if you see them buying up homes in your neighborhood or building massive developments next door. Yet, if they get pushed out of this market, our affordability problem probably gets worse, not better. The policy is popular politically, which is why Trump supports it, but it’s among the worst provisions here.

One remarkable angle on this legislation is what it doesn’t do. The federal government is spending a lot of money, but it’s not sending any new funding towards affordable housing projects or to address higher construction and material costs. That’s largely due to how the bill was passed: Initially, it was an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). That means it had to be budget neutral, which could be read as a bit of Congressional spending restraint or a sign the bill has fewer teeth than it needs, depending on your lens.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this housing bill is that it passed at all. Housing policy is a bit dry, so this is unlikely to dominate the X feeds of culture warriors who are busy posting about the Reflecting Pool. But in 10 years, we may look back on this as the most significant piece of legislation passed by Trump in his second term, and yet it never could have passed under a Democratic president, despite the fact it contains so many things Democrats have long sought. 

In fact, more Republicans than Democrats voted to oppose this bill, even though President Trump previously voiced his support for it. Some conservatives are already expressing their sense of betrayal about that — Blaze TV host Daniel Horowitz gave a nearly hour-long monologue about how this bill represents the death knell of a bygone conservative movement, putting the blame squarely on the president (who is now promising not to sign the bill, even though it will become law with or without his signature). 

We won’t see the downstream impacts of this bill for years, but I’ll be watching for a few things: Where new housing will be built, what that housing actually costs, and what localities will do with the money they get from the honey pot. I’m excited to see a bipartisan, bicameral bill that will have real impact get across the finish line, but I’m still unsure what that impact will actually be.

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Your questions, answered.

Q: Can you please explain Tulsi Gabbard’s released documents and claims about the Covid-19 origin? And what is the relationship to the report on this guru? I’m pretty confused about this and my partner is supporting the claims but I haven’t seen any good credible sources back this up.

— Anonymous from Alexandria, VA

Tangle: Tulsi Gabbard announced her resignation as director of national intelligence in May, saying that she needed to spend more time supporting her husband as he battled a rare form of cancer. These two unrelated stories broke on her way out the door.

Gabbard has long supported the “lab-leak theory” of Covid’s origins. On June 18, she declassified documents supporting the claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci oversaw funding that supported coronavirus research involving bat viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, then lied to Congress about his role. The documents show intelligence officials debating Fauci’s suggestions on which virologists to consult while investigating the lab-leak theory before deferring to his recommendations. This supports the claim that Fauci guided intelligence officials toward experts more skeptical of the lab-leak theory, but it doesn’t support Gabbard’s claims of a cover-up. 

Fauci has not commented on the allegations, but he has previously denied claims that he misrepresented the government’s relationship with the Wuhan lab or covered anything up. Fauci did, however, say under oath in 2024 testimony to Congress that he did not, “to my knowledge,” speak to intelligence officials about viral research; the documents Gabbard declassified directly contradict that testimony. 

As for the “guru” story, on Sunday, The Washington Post published a story about Gabbard’s relationship with Chris Butler, an eccentric religious leader described as her guru and the leader of a breakaway Hare Krishna group (the Science of Identity Foundation) that some ex-members have described as a “cult.” According to the report, Butler closely managed Gabbard’s public statements while she was a member of Congress, and she at times quoted his talking points to reporters nearly verbatim. Gabbard has not commented on the story, but her spokesperson has denied the reports, claiming they were an example of “anti-Hindu bigotry.”

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This day in history.

On June 24, 1374, the townsfolk of Aachen, in modern-day Germany, gathered in the streets, joined hands, and began to dance — and dance, and dance, and dance, and dance. They danced for days on end, twirling, whirling, screaming and shouting, even as their bodies showed signs of injury, until finally the participants collapsed from exhaustion. The outbreak of dancing soon spread up the Rhine River, into France and the Netherlands, frightening priests, merchants, and neighbors who hadn’t succumbed to the dancing mania. The outbreak became known as “St. John’s Dance” because it began on the Feast of St. John. 

Though the 1374 outbreak subsided after a few months, it was neither the first nor last episode of “choreomania” in medieval Europe. Choreomania outbreaks are well documented by medieval authors and public records, and many theories have been advanced to explain the phenomenon. In the Middle Ages, some believed the dancers to be victims of demonic possession; others thought spider bites caused the frenzy. More recently, some scientists have theorized that ergotism — a poisoning known to cause hallucinations, brought on by eating rye infected with a certain fungus — was the culprit. However, those theories don’t account for the spread, timing, or full symptoms of the afflicted. Some historians and psychologists believe instead that the dancing contagion was a psychological phenomenon, a sort of mass hysteria brought on by depression and fear in the aftermath of the bubonic plague, but choreomania’s cause (or causes) remain a mystery.

Numbers.

• 42 and 41. The number of Republican and Democratic senators, respectively, who voted in favor of the housing bill. 
• $275,300. The average price of houses sold in the United States in the first quarter of 2010. 
• $514,600. The average price of houses sold in the United States in the first quarter of 2026.
• 29% and 43%. The percent share of median income that went toward homeownership costs in April of 2010 and 2026, respectively. 
• 21,000,000. The approximate number of renter households that spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2023. 
• 3,000,000. The estimated number of homes needed to resolve the housing shortage, according to Goldman Sachs. 
• 8,000,000. The estimated number of homes needed to resolve the housing shortage, according to McKinsey. 

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about transgender healthcare before the Supreme Court.
• The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was the housing affordability bill.
• Nothing to do with politics: What is “burrowcore,” and why is it taking off?
• Our last survey: 3,010 readers responded to our survey asking how far a democratic socialist is likely to advance in the 2028 presidential race with 50% saying one will be a top Democratic contender. “I think the U.S.A. is more than ready for a major change… the DSA could just be the answer,” one respondent said. “I’m a lifelong Democrat, but I would vote Republican before a Democratic Socialist as long as that party is married to antisemitism,” said another.

Have a nice day.

It took one Sumatran Orangutan exactly 60 seconds to make history. Orangutans are a highly endangered species, and when a road through their habitat in North Sumatra, Indonesia, made survival even more difficult, conservationists installed a special bridge for wildlife in 2024. Members of the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) have been monitoring the area ever since, hoping an orangutan would use their forest-canopy crossing. In the first video ever recorded of the species crossing a wildlife bridge, a young male orangutan puts one foot after another on a human-made, woven structure, using the rope handrail above him. “You should have heard the cries of delight from the team,” Helen Buckland, SOS chief executive, said. “After two long years, it’s finally happened.” The Guardian has the story (and video).