Donald Trump attacks Kamala Harris with X over real estate prices

Donald Trump used Elon Musk's social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to attack Kamala Harris over her housing policies and shared data showing that housing prices have increased under the Biden administration.

The former president and Republican presidential candidate was responding to Harris' promise to help prospective homebuyers enter the real estate market. She has announced that she will provide $25,000 in assistance to first-time buyers.

“Even if aspiring homeowners save for years, it's often not enough,” Harris wrote on X on Monday. “My administration will provide first-time buyers with $25,000 to help make the down payment on a new home.”

Trump responded by sharing the vice president's post on his X profile on Wednesday and adding a screenshot from Fox News showing that median sales prices for existing homes have increased 39 percent between January 2021 and today. According to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median sales price for existing homes in the U.S. was $307,300 when Joe Biden took office; now it is $426,900.

Trump back on Twitter (now X)

The post is one of many the former president has shared on Musk's X in recent weeks. Trump made a surprise comeback on the platform after sharing just one post since the businessman restored his profile in November 2022. The renewed activity on the platform follows Musk's Aug. 12 interview with Trump on X's audio feature Spaces.

Trump was permanently banned from Twitter after calling the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, “patriots.” His account was restored by Musk after the entrepreneur bought the platform two years ago and changed its name to X.

In recent years, the former President seemed to have left X behind, preferring to use his own social media platform, Truth Social, to communicate with his followers instead. The only post he made between November 2022 and August of this year was his mugshot from August 25, 2023.

But since Harris became the Democratic presidential candidate, the situation has changed. Between August 12 and Wednesday, Trump published and/or shared a total of 61 posts on X, including at least 22 that name-dropped and attacked Harris and her policies. These include an AI image of Harris in front of a communist flag and several posts in which Trump calls the vice president “Comrade Kamala Harris” and a “border czar.”

A post the former president shared twice on his profile shows that prices for several goods and services, including eggs, gasoline, eggs, electricity and rent, have increased under the Biden administration. As in the case of the Fox News screenshot on housing prices, the post is a response to Harris' promise to “reduce the cost of everyday needs like healthcare, housing and groceries.”

Newsweek reached out to Trump and Harris' 2024 campaign teams via email outside of regular business hours Wednesday morning for comment.

Have real estate prices increased under the Biden administration?

While home and rental prices have risen over the past four years, this trend has more to do with supply and demand in the U.S. housing market than with any actions taken by the Biden administration. Prices soared during the pandemic because demand was high, mortgage rates were relatively low and supply was inadequate, leading to relentless bidding wars in some markets.

Despite a modest price correction across the country between late summer 2022 and spring 2023, triggered by the sudden rise in mortgage rates and a slowdown in demand, homes remain nearly as expensive this year as they were during their 2022 peaks. According to real estate company Redfin, the median sales price of a home in the U.S. was $438,815 in July, up 4 percent from a year ago.

This price increase is largely due to pent-up demand outstripping supply as the U.S. chronically underbuilt following the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Crucially, this shortage of available housing existed during Trump's tenure in the Oval Office and continued during Biden's presidency – but the rise in inflation following the pandemic exacerbated the situation.

As Trump suggests in his post, many Americans blame the Biden-Harris administration for the higher cost of living they now face. A recent poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for Newsweek The study found that of the 41 percent of Americans who said the U.S. economy was in “bad” or “very bad” shape, 93 percent believed Biden was responsible and 88 percent thought Harris was.

“Persistent inflation has been a significant political burden for Joe Biden, and now it is also weighing heavily on Kamala Harris,” said Thomas Gift, associate professor of political science and director of the Centre on US Politics at University College London, UK, previously Newsweek.

“Harris has vowed to confront the cost of living crisis, but she seems to be forgetting that she has been in office for the past three and a half years, championing 'Bidenomics,'” he added.

Trump vs. Harris: Plans to tackle the housing crisis

In a recent ad, Harris said if elected, she would build three million new homes within four years to fill the current supply gap in the U.S. housing market. The vice president said she would also create tax breaks for first-time buyers and double the funds available to $40 billion to encourage local governments to lift regulations that slow new construction.

So far, Trump has not stated that he wants to focus on building new housing to solve the current affordability crisis in the U.S. housing market. Instead, he has stated that he wants to stop illegal immigration to reduce demand for housing and lower prices.

David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Newsweek that “anything that increases the supply of housing – especially affordable housing – is welcome.”

Regarding Harris' housing policy, Wessel said: “I don't think we have an urgent need for more Tax incentives for real estate, but we're going to introduce some of these because they're so popular, then the tax incentives for building more entry-level homes and affordable rental housing are fine.”

He said, “Even though the federal government doesn't have much influence over state and local zoning regulations, anything Washington can do to nudge local governments in the right direction is welcome. And maybe this innovation fund will do just that. And whatever Washington can do to make good on its promise to 'cut red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy' would be great.”

Wessel, however, is not as positive about the proposed $25,000 support for first-time home buyers. “I'm not convinced that the $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers is a good idea, but I don't quite understand how that's supposed to work,” he said.

“The fact sheet states: 'On average, $25,000 for all eligible first-time homebuyers, while ensuring full participation by first-time buyers.' Increasing demand for homes does not seem like a step in the right direction, and administering a program like the Biden proposal that provides additional credit to people whose parents did not own a home sounds challenging.”