Federal Housing Finance
Agency director Bill Pulte is becoming an increasingly significant character in
the MAGAverse, and it’s pissing everyone off.
Politico has reported that GOPers on Capitol Hill are privately
fuming that Pulte has punched so far above his weight. The Trump official has
managed to achieve inner circle status as FHFA director, which is usually a
more background role.
That contempt only grew
stronger after Pulte’s dust-up with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a MAGA
influencer’s upscale birthday dinner in Washington, D.C., in which the
Secretary told Pulte he would punch him in his “fucking
face” for apparently
criticizing him to Trump behind his back. It seems safe to say that many GOP
members take after Bessent, and find Pulte irritating at best.
“I think he’s a nut,”
one House Republican told Politico, referring to Pulte.
“The guy’s just a little
too big for his britches,” said a second Republican of Pulte. “I’ve got great
respect for Bessent for taking him on.”
“I would have done the
same,” a third Republican told Politico.
A Republican on
the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees Pulte at the FHFA,
also thinks that he is moving too quickly on privatizing mortgage companies
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying that Pulte was “not where the committee
is.”
The fact that Bessent
told Pulte he wanted to beat the shit out of him, and party members are on
record essentially saying they would have done the same thing, speaks to just
how disliked Pulte is. There’s one major exception: President Trump. The
president’s affinity for Pulte seems to stem from the FHFA director’s
aggressively pro-MAGA social media activity. He is perhaps best known on X,
where he tweets something every day to his 3 million followers.
We’ll see if this
internal strife has any real impact on Pulte’s growing influence, as he has
been the driving force behind recent mortgage fraud attacks on Senator Adam
Schiff, New York Attorney General Leticia James, and most recently Federal
Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Cook has denied the allegations and remains at
her post.
The post This Trump Official Is Really Pissing Off GOP Lawmakers appeared first on New Republic.
