LIVE VIDEO: HUD Nominee’s Confirmation Hearing

Housing Wire reports:

As President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Scott Turner will be questioned on Thursday by lawmakers of both parties in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

But ahead of that hearing, a familiar Trump foe — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — is vowing to press Turner on a series of housing issues he may be addressing if he gets the job.

In a letter sent to Turner on Sunday, Warren highlighted a series of housing issues she said will come up in the hearing. And she mentioned the positions Turner has publicly taken in the past that she is asking him to account for as he seeks to lead HUD and pursue its overarching mission.

ProPublica reports:

As Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner may soon oversee the nation’s efforts to build affordable apartments, protect poor tenants and aid the homeless. As a lawmaker in the Texas House of Representatives, Turner voted against those very initiatives.

Turner supported a bill ensuring landlords could refuse apartments to applicants because they received federal housing assistance. He opposed a bill to expand affordable rental housing. He voted against funding public-private partnerships to support the homeless and against two bills that called merely to study homelessness among young people and veterans.

Behind those votes lay a deep-seated skepticism about the value of government efforts to alleviate poverty, a skepticism that Turner has voiced again and again. He has called welfare “dangerous, harmful” and “one of the most destructive things for the family.”

Turner, an ex-NFL player, is best friends with Dr. Stabby.