Politico reports White House officials are furious with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte talking President Donald Trump into suggesting a 50-year mortgage plan.
“The White House was blindsided by the idea, according to two people familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, and is now dealing with a furious backlash from conservative allies, business leaders and lawmakers,” Politico reports.
On Saturday evening, Politico reports Pulte arrived at Trump’s Palm Beach Golf Club with a poster containing a graphic of former President Franklin Roosevelt appearing below “30-year mortgage” and one of Trump below “50-year mortgage.” The headline was “Great American Presidents.”
It was only about 10 minutes later that Trump was posting an image favoring 50-year mortgages to Truth Social, according to one of the anonymous sources.
“Almost immediately, aides were fielding angry phone calls from opposition complaining the proposition was bad politics and bad policy that could raise housing costs in the long run with intolerable interest costs," Politico reports.
“He just sold POTUS a bill of goods that wasn’t necessarily accurate,” the anonymous source told Politico. “He said ‘FDR did it, you can do it, it’s gonna be a big thing.’ But he didn’t tell him about all the unintended consequences.”
Another anonymous source made clear that Trump is a president who can be easily led by bad suggestions.
“Anything that goes before POTUS needs to be vetted,” said the person present for Pulte’s poster presentation. “And a lot of times with Pulte they’re not. He just goes straight up to POTUS.”
Gennadiy Goldberg, head of US rates strategy at TD Securities, described Pulte’s proposal as leading “to buyers building equity in their homes more slowly.”
“At the beginning of the mortgage, more of those payments tend to be interest,” said Goldberg. “This is more of a stopgap bandaid to address affordability.”
MAGA influencers and conservatives razed the proposal on social media, said Politico, with a list including Laura Loomer, Mike Cernovich, Christopher Rufo, Sean Davis of the Federalist, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
“The thing that became clear from this latest episode — if it wasn’t already clear — is that Bill Pulte doesn’t know the first f—— thing about how the mortgage markets operate,” one of the anonymous sources told Politico. “After publicly humiliating the president with his moronic 50 year mortgage plan it’s safe to assume that his days are numbered.”
However, Trump was defending the plan seemingly with complete confidence on Fox News on Monday.
“It’s not even a big deal,” said Trump, who sold himself on his real estate prowess before becoming president. “All it means is you pay less per month. You pay it over a longer period of time. It’s not like a big factor.”