A significant swathe of the president’s typically staunch base of supporters criticized the proposal, including Laura Loomer and Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, for allegedly preying on potential homebuyers, as the interest on the longer loan would virtually double compared to that of a 30-year option. 

“I don’t like 50-year mortgages as the solution to the housing affordability crisis,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote on X. “It will ultimately reward the banks, mortgage lenders, and home builders while people pay far more in interest over time and die before they ever pay off their home.”

On Monday, Politico reported that it only took Pulte 10 minutes, plus a single poster board, to convince the president to back his idea. The story quoted two White House staffers who suggested that Pulte has a habit of deviating from the typical workflow for getting policies to the president’s desk for review and is responsible for the heat the White House is currently taking from MAGA voices.

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

A second source shared with the outlet: “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***ing thing about how the mortgage markets operate.

“After publicly humiliating the president with his moronic 50 year mortgage plan it’s safe to assume that his days are numbered.”

Three out-of-government Trumpworld figures told the Washington Examiner that the Politico story, along with subsequent reporting on Pulte’s removal of watchdogs monitoring Fannie Mae last month, suggests a coordinated campaign to use Pulte as a shield for the president amid the mortgage drama.

A day after the Politico report, the Wall Street Journal reported that the watchdogs fired by Pulte had been investigating whether or not he had improperly pulled mortgage records of Trump’s political enemies after he brought mortgage fraud allegations against Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in August. Those allegations led to attempts from the president to remove her from the Federal Reserve Board, though a federal judge later restored her to her position.

“It’s pretty clear that some people in the White House are pissed. POTUS is laser-focused on the economy, and whether or not Bill took advantage of that — it’s not for me to say,” one longtime Trump adviser told the Washington Examiner. “But anyone with a brain can see they’re looking for a way to clean this up, and it seems like they’ve found their fall guy.”

“Yeah, he’s on the chopping block,” a second former Trump administration official told the Washington Examiner. “As it should be. You can make unforced errors. But you can’t make the president look bad. Full stop.”  

A White House official, when asked about the current dynamic between Trump and Pulte, told the Washington Examiner: “President Trump is always exploring new ways to improve housing affordability for everyday Americans.”

Still, the Pulte smoke doesn’t appear to have moved either the FHFA director or Trump off their positions on exploring new mortgage options.

Pulte himself posted on X that, in addition to the 50-year, the Trump administration is “actively evaluating portable loans,” that buyers could conceivably transfer across multiple properties. 

And during his Monday interview with Fox, Trump stood firm in his support, despite consecutive days of negative backlash among Republicans.

“It’s not even a big deal,” he told Ingraham. “All it means is you pay less per month, you pay it over a longer period of time. It’s not like a big factor. It might help a little bit, but the problem was that Biden did this. He increased the interest rates.”

Kevin Hassett, the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, similarly defended the proposal during a Wednesday conversation with the Economic Club of Washington, D.C.

“I think that too many people buying houses right now is not what the problem is,” he countered when asked if a lower barrier for purchasing a home, especially among first-time buyers, would only exacerbate the housing supply problem. “The problem is that the home ownership of people of 40 and under is at a historic low.”

Hassett did offer some interesting insight, however, about the quiet competition among the president’s aides when it comes to making policy and, in particular, dealing with people who “whisper in his ear after everybody is gone.”

TRUMP SAYS AFFORDABILITY IS A ‘DEAD’ ISSUE. HIS RECENT PROPOSALS SAY OTHERWISE

“There is a risk that the most convincing person in any administration is the person who talked to the president last, and then that creates a competition to, like, check his sleeping schedule and decide who’s the one who’s going to call him right before he goes to sleep,” he stated. “And that’s something that every President has to deal with, and that I think, that this administration has dealt really well with compared to previous administrations.”