Trump Aides Slam Pulte Over 50-Year Home Mortgage Plan

White House officials are furious with Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, who persuaded the president to suggest a 50-year mortgage plan, Dasha Burns and Sophia Cai reported for Politico.

Over the weekend, Pulte arrived at President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach Golf Club with a roughly 3-by-5 poster board in hand. (Photo: Federal Housing Finance Agency) 

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.

Over the weekend, Pulte arrived at President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach Golf Club with a roughly 3-by-5 poster board in hand.

A graphic of former President Franklin Roosevelt appeared below “30-Year Mortgage,” and one of Trump below “50-Year Mortgage.”

The headline read: “Great American Presidents.” Writing for United Press International (UPI), Sheri Walsh quoted Pulte as saying,

“Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on the 50-Year Mortgage — a complete game changer.”

Trump has compared the plan to the 30-year mortgage introduced under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Trump then posted the image to Truth Social. Immediately, his aides received angry phone calls from those who thought the idea — which would endorse a 50-year payback period for a mortgage — was both bad politics and bad policy, a move that could raise housing costs in the long run.

“He just sold POTUS a bill of goods that wasn’t necessarily accurate,” one person said.

“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.”

The episode underscores the haphazard ways consequential policies are sometimes brought before the president — and how Trump’s govern-by-whim nature can backfire.

“Anything that goes before POTUS needs to be vetted,” said a source. “And a lot of times with Pulte, they’re not. He just goes straight up to POTUS.”