Will Trump’s $280 Billion Housing Trophy Stay Out of Reach?
Unwinding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Treasury control remains so near and yet so far.
In the months before Donald Trump entered the White House the first time around, speculation mounted that he would release mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the federal conservatorship they’d operated under since being bailed out during the global financial crisis. “We got to get Fannie and Freddie out of government ownership,” Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, said. “It makes no sense that these are owned by the government and have been controlled by the government for as long as they have.”
Trump came and went – and nothing happened. The companies had insufficient capital to survive on their own, and Trump had a hard time dislodging the head of the agency that oversaw them. Then a pandemic got in the way. Eight years later, Fannie and Freddie remain in government hands.