Trump’s repeal of desegregation rules is a last-ditch appeal to suburban women — and it won't work: Kaitlan Collins

On CNN Wednesday, White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins broke down President Donald Trump's move to repeal the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, a provision designed to combat neighborhood segregation.

"When the president rescinded this, the Department of Housing and Urban Development called it this unworkable rule, but though there is no evidence that it drove crime up in these areas, you saw what the president said there on Twitter," said Collins. "You know, your housing prices will go up based on the market and crime will go down. Of course, there is no evidence that crime went up, so it's not clear where the president is making that statement from, and that is why you've seen critics in response to this say they believe it a pretty clear play to his base."

"I mean, given the history of the Trump Organization and his father and the allegations against them, the lawsuits against them for discrimination in housing, this rule as you mentioned is from 2015, it's pretty clear why the president is just repealing it now," said anchor Anderson Cooper.

"It also comes as, internally, the president's campaign has been talking and noticing that he is losing ground with suburban voters, mainly women suburban voters that helped carry him into the White House in 2016," said Collins. "That is why you've seen him lately try to say, if Joe Biden gets elected, the suburbs will disappear. He's been making comments like that trying to appeal to those kind of voters with this."

"The thing is, it's not clear this is going to work," added Collins. Aides have been saying his best reelection strategy is focusing on the coronavirus, making it look like he is in charge, he is at the helm. We've seen the statements that he's made this week but instead, the president has gone back to these cultural battles that helped him in 2016, but what is unclear how this will work, we saw what happened in 2018 where the president used things like the caravan, talking about that ahead of the midterm elections, and Democrats retook the House because it wasn't something that appealed to voters ... so that's the question, is this going to be an effective tactic like the president thinks it is."

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