Bill Pulte, a rising star within the Trump administration, has reportedly made such a song and dance of pandering to the president that it’s starting to drive other aides insane.
Pulte, 37, has carried out stunts like using Ghostbusters-themed posters as props in exchanges with Donald Trump. The director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency also reportedly made a habit of publicly bashing loathed Trump opponents like Fed chair Jerome Powell, and has taken to emulating the president’s tendency to go off on bizarre tangents during meetings with others, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Pulte made headlines earlier this month when it emerged he’d managed to talk the president, 79, into proposing replacing 30-year-mortgages with 50-year-mortgages, despite experts warning the changes would almost certainly trap recipients in lifelong debt.
Two days later, news broke that a team of ethics and investigations watchdogs had been fired at Fannie Mae, a government enterprise that helps keep the U.S. housing market stable. The investigators had reportedly been probing whether Pulte had improperly obtained sensitive mortgage data on key MAGA enemies, including New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Pulte appeared to have done his homework prior to joining the administration. The Journal reports he and his wife donated several hundreds of thousands of dollars to the MAGA cause both ahead of last year’s presidential election and in previous election cycles. He was reportedly seen dining with Roger Stone late last year, Trump’s one-time adviser and long-time friend. Pulte’s also been making an effort to get in Donald Trump Jr’s good graces.
While all this would appear to have succeeded in wooing the president, the young aide’s methods and tactics have reportedly proven a source of increasing annoyance and frustration among his colleagues.
Amid reports that some of Pulte’s opponents are now gathering something of a dossier on the Housing chief’s perceived missteps in office, officials have reportedly told staffers to keep an eye out for Pulte and ensure he doesn’t approach Trump unattended. The aide took to showing up at the president’s golf courses unannounced.
On one occasion, Pulte reportedly got himself into a tangle with the Treasury Secretary during a dinner hosted by Donald Trump Jr. According to a Politico report about the incident, Scott Bessent heard Pulte was badmouthing him to the president behind his back, and became so angry he threatened to punch Pulte “in the f–king face.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Federal Housing Finance Agency for comment on this story.
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