Comment by Simulacra
3 days ago
That's true, but to play devils advocate for a second, just because he says something doesn't make it wrong or bad. Banning Wall Street from buying single-family homes is a great thing that I completely support, and I don't really care which president makes it happen.
It also doesn't mean he can actually do it. There's no obvious mechanism by which this can be enforced without a law from Congress, and it's not entirely clear such a law would be Constitutional (they'd have to base it in the right of the federal government to regulate interstate commerce if they're going to base it in anything, which presupposes an interstate market for shelter, and there's a reasonable argument to be made that maybe that's not a thing; housing is a local concern, and home prices in Topeka don't impact me, a buyer in Boston, if I want to live in Boston).
The policy would be great! You aren't playing devil's advocate for what I said. I wasn't talking about the merits of the policy at all. Him saying it just doesn't have any connection to whether the policy will ever exist. The headline without that detail is wrongly implying certainly that isn't warranted.
The point is that leaving off “Trump says” makes it sound like something that will actually happen.