President Trump has been utilizing the bully pulpit of his presidency to go after the Federal Reserve with a vengeance, and Federal Housing Finance Company (FHFA) chief William Pulte has acted as his megaphone-in-chief all through his strain marketing campaign.
Pulte has lambasted Fed chair Powell in social media posts and tv interviews, known as for decrease short-term rates of interest, and exhorted Congress to probe the Fed over a value overrun.
On Wednesday, he alleged that Fed governor Lisa Cook dinner dedicated mortgage fraud by designating each her Atlanta rental and her Michigan residence as her main residences.
The allegation is a part of a sample. Pulte has made mortgage fraud accusations in opposition to two different high political enemies of the president, New York lawyer normal Letitia James and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff (Calif.).
Although Pulte’s company has nothing to do with the prison prosecution system or the willpower of U.S. financial coverage, Pulte is leaping into each of those arenas from his perch atop the company accountable for guaranteeing mortgage loans.
What’s Pulte’s job as head of the Federal Housing Finance Company?
Pulte oversees government-backed mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the primary guarantors of mortgage credit score for households. Collectively, they’ve roughly $7.5 trillion in property and greater than $100 billion in fairness. He additionally oversees the company’s 11 federal residence mortgage banks.
Previous to the 2008 market crash, Fannie and Freddie had been personal firms that operated with further rules to maintain them secure and reasonably priced, just like utilities. In 2008, they had been nationalized right into a authorities conservatorship, although they nonetheless earn cash by shopping for industrial loans, guaranteeing them, and promoting them as securities.
This can be a busy time for the FHFA because the Trump administration is contemplating whether or not to re-privatize Fannie and Freddie, a transfer that might rework mortgage markets after 15 years underneath authorities stewardship.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing very well, throwing off a lot of cash, and the time would seem to be right,” Trump stated in Might. “Stay tuned!”
It’s a fraught time usually for the U.S. housing sector, which is dealing with a housing scarcity of between 1.5 and 5.5 million properties and is behaving sluggishly. The Trump administration introduced a plan in March to promote about 625 sq. miles of federal suburban federal lands for brand spanking new housing, however there hasn’t been a big replace from the administration about that in just a few months.
Pulte has been going after Powell
By way of media appearances and social media posts, Pulte has homed in on Trump’s political foes.
Following Trump’s relentless criticism of the Federal Reserve, Pulte has regularly blasted Fed Chair Jerome Powell, even accusing him of mendacity.
“Jerome Powell, again, lies to the American people,” he wrote on the social web site X in July. “This time [he is] saying that the Fed has nothing to do with housing. The Fed has everything to do with housing.”
Pulte has accused Powell of strangling the housing market by preserving rates of interest unnecessarily excessive, an argument Trump has shared when attacking the Fed chair.
The Fed’s in a single day interbank charges have an effect on financing ranges in lots of components of the economic system. They have a tendency to undergird mortgage charges, however mortgage charges way more carefully monitor 10-year Treasury yields, which aren’t set by the Fed.
Powell can be simply one in all greater than a dozen Fed officers who’ve voted to maintain rates of interest regular, with some breaking from him in latest weeks.
“I’d be happy if we had a different chair,” Pulte instructed CNBC in a Wednesday interview.
Banking specialists instructed The Hill that the strain marketing campaign on the Fed from Trump’s government is unprecedented within the U.S. and that comparable initiatives have solely occurred on a comparable scale in different international locations.
“If you think of Hungary, Turkey, and India to a certain extent – there have been episodes like that,” Nicolas Véron, a senior fellow on the Peterson Institute, instructed The Hill. “In the U.S., it’s correct to say that since the creation of the Fed … I don’t think there’s been anything like this.”
A flurry of mortgage fraud accusations
Mortgage fraud accusations have been coming quick and livid from Pulte, aimed not simply at Fed Governor Lisa Cook dinner however at different high political opponents of the president — New York Legal professional Basic Letitia James (D) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Schiff led the primary impeachment effort within the Home in opposition to Trump and supported the Jan. 6 Congressional committee’s investigation into the riot on the Capitol.
James has sued Trump and his administration a number of instances. In 2024, her workplace received a $454 million judgment in opposition to the president and his firms in a case alleging he lied about how a lot his property had been price on monetary statements.
Cook dinner stated in a press release she has no intention of stepping down from her put up and that she is “gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions” pertaining to her monetary historical past.
Pulte stated Wednesday that it was a part of his job to refer alleged instances of mortgage fraud to the Justice Division.
“If it didn’t end up on my desk, I wouldn’t be doing my job,” he stated.
Housing advocates instructed The Hill they need to see better consideration to social housing coverage from Pulte and fewer consideration to particular person mortgage fraud claims.
“The [FHFA] can and should be the foremost vehicle for making housing affordable and protecting tenants against landlord abuses,” Tara Raghuveer, director of the Tenant Union Federation, instructed The Hill. “Instead, Pulte is using his position to do favors for Trump by attacking his political enemies.”
The same background to Trump
Pulte and Trump have an identical skilled background. Each males come from household companies in the true property sector and made cash in growth.
Pulte’s grandfather based Pulte Group, a housing building agency that operates underneath the manufacturers Pulte Houses, Centex, Del Webb, DiVosta, American West, and John Wieland Houses and Neighborhoods, in response to its web site.
Based on monetary knowledge firm Whale Knowledge, Pulte Group managed 228,296 heaps in 2021, of which 109,078 had been owned and 119,218 had been underneath land choice agreements.
Pulte himself based Pulte Capital Companions, an funding agency price greater than $50 million, in response to his private monetary disclosure. He disclosed greater than $80 million in property associated to housing, property administration, or air con and heating firms in his 2025 monetary disclosure kind.
Stylistically, Trump and Pulte each have a keenness for social media, firing off posts and making daring claims about their enemies.
“Soon, unemployed,” Pulte posted on social media above an image of Powell and Cook dinner.
