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President Donald Trump was deceived into backing a plan for 50-year mortgages by a federal housing official who “doesn’t know the first f------ thing about how the mortgage markets operate,” according to an unnamed official quoted in Politico. The White House is livid over Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, who got Trump to endorse the 50-year mortgage plan after pitching the idea to the president over the weekend at Trump’s golf club in Florida using a 3-by-5 posterboard. “A graphic of former President Franklin Roosevelt appeared below ’30-year mortgage’ and one of Trump below ’50-year mortgage.’ The headline was ‘Great American Presidents,’” Politico reported. “Roughly 10 minutes later, Trump posted the image to Truth Social," one of two people familiar with the situation, who was with the president at the time, told Politico. The White House was enraged that Pulte got unfettered access to the president without his ideas being vetted. The 50-year mortgage proposal has widely panned by White House advisors who claimed the idea is both bad politics and bad policy, according to Politico. “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 Politico’s two sources said. “After publicly humiliating the president with his moronic 50-year mortgage plan it’s safe to assume that his days are numbered.” But the president, in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that aired Monday, didn’t understand the backlash. “It’s not even a big deal ... And what it means is you pay something less, from 30 -- some people had a 40 -- and now they have a 50. All it means is you pay less per month, you pay it over a longer period of time,” Trump said. “It’s not, like, a big factor. It might help a little bit.” Trump blamed the problems with housing on his predecessor, Joe Biden. “But the problem was that Biden did this. He increased the interest rates. And I have a lousy Fed person who’s gonna be gone in a few months, fortunately,” he said, referring to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom the president has frequently criticized for not dropping interest rates. Powell’s term expires in May.
