Pelosi says Trump decision to roll back fair housing rule is a ‘betrayal of our nation’s founding values’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) castigated the Trump administration Thursday for revoking an Obama-era housing rule, calling it a “shameful abdication” of the government’s responsibilities on housing desegregation.

The White House announced Thursday it will repeal the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which requires all jurisdictions that receive federal housing funds to come up with desegregation plans for any potential patterns of discrimination.

Instead the Department of Housing and Urban Development will replace the rule with its own policy, named Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice. 

“The Trump Administration’s elimination of the fair housing rule is a betrayal of our nation’s founding values of equality and opportunity for all. It is a shameful abdication of our government’s responsibility to end discriminatory housing practices and to lift up our nation’s most vulnerable communities,” Pelosi said in a statement.

The speaker claimed that 50 years after the Fair Housing Act, there is still a fight for civil rights and to eliminate “our county’s legacies of redlining and racial segregation.” 

“As our nation confronts systemic racism and injustice, we will continue our struggle to secure justice for vulnerable and marginalized communities and to ensure that everyone in America, regardless of race or creed, is guaranteed access to equal opportunity and safe and fair housing,” she added. 

Pelosi also vowed to continue to work to expand housing protections with fellow Democrats, and noted that the House-passed HEROES Act includes increased funding for fair housing enforcement.

President Trump, who is trailing former Vice President Joe Biden among suburban voters in nearly all recent polling, has to appeal to that demographic, falsely claiming the presumptive Democratic nominee supports abolishing suburbs.

Trump has also taken aim at the rule itself for several weeks, tweeting in late June that the rule was “having a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas.”