Neera Tanden

We get a lot of conversation from Donald Trump, but every once in a while, he will just honestly tell you what he thinks about an issue.

And I think this is really one of those areas.

And, you know, for people who understand housing in America, one of the big challenges is that

It's a difficult issue, right?

Because people who have bought a house, you know, a lot of people's wealth in America is in their house.

And so a lot of incumbents like to keep the people who already own a home, like to actually keep housing values up and sometimes oppose the development of additional housing in their neighborhoods, et cetera.

But we're really living through one of the problems with that

that whole system, which is today, the average age of a first-time home buyer in the United States is 40 years old.

Rents went up 30% from 2020 to 2023, and they've stabilized since then.

And in some markets, they're coming down, but people overall have got a rent shock and a housing shock.

And I think it really does say a lot about the president, which is I think the people he talks to on a regular basis, maybe the wealthiest Americans, really want to keep housing values up because it is key to their wealth.

But for working class Americans, middle class Americans who are trying to buy a home or trying to just make ends meet by having an affordable rent,

To say that you don't want any more housing means you want housing prices to go up.

You want to make it harder to buy that home.

You want to make it harder to afford the rent.

That is what that means.

And, you know, I think it's just kind of a classic thing here, which is on tariffs, on this policy, on so much more.

You know, the great irony here is the president is making life a lot harder economically for working class, middle class Americans.

My interpretation of what happened here is the president might have been talking about lowering housing costs because...

His advisors tell him to say he wants to lower housing costs.