The Man Behind Trump’s Firing of Lisa Cook
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte has led investigations into Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Leititia James, and the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud.
With a background a lot like Trump’s—and a little like Mr. Beast’s—who is Pulte? And what kind of damage could a vengeful FHFA director do?
Guest: Rachel Siegel, reporter covering the economics of real estate and housing for the Washington Post.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Let's play a game. I'm going to ask you to name one of President Trump's most flashy attack dogs. |
| 0:13.3 | I'm guessing you're thinking about Laura Lumer, maybe Marjorie Taylor Green. But what if I told you, |
| 0:20.5 | there was someone else, just as important. |
| 0:23.6 | And he is the leader of a little-known agency, one that was just created back in 2008, |
| 0:29.9 | the Federal Housing Finance Agency. |
| 0:32.7 | It's a relatively small agency. |
| 0:35.3 | It's not even part of the cabinet, but it has a lot of power in that it oversees the U.S. mortgage market. |
| 0:45.0 | Rachel Siegel covers the economics of housing for the Washington Post. So she's one of the few people who is familiar with the FHFA, as it's called. |
| 0:55.3 | How common is it for anyone other than you to know the name of the person heading up the federal housing finance agency? |
| 1:02.1 | Probably not very common, or at least not that they could fill in what FHFA stands for. |
| 1:07.1 | So who is the head of the federal housing finance agency? |
| 1:11.7 | His name is Bill Pulte. |
| 1:14.5 | Bill Pulte. Remember that name. |
| 1:17.5 | Because he's got 3 million followers on Twitter, and he is leading this obscure agency in directions it's never gone before. |
| 1:25.7 | He has quite a platform, both just with his literal title and with his influence on social |
| 1:32.9 | media. And he's really used that platform in two ways. One is to attack really hard on people |
| 1:40.2 | that he doesn't like, on people that he's accusing a mortgage fraud. And then he'll also |
| 1:44.1 | use that platform to kind of unexpectedly and suddenly announce policy. For a while, he was, like, |
| 1:50.4 | taking cell phone photos of memorandums and just tweeting out the picture, or he'll tweet a policy, |
| 1:56.5 | and it isn't necessarily backed up with any official press release or other guidance. |
| 2:01.5 | You might be thinking, okay, but how much can this one guy do? |
| 2:06.6 | It turns out the answer to that is a lot. In his first six months in office, he has led |
... |
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