Trump Aides Secretly Seethe at His Nepo Baby Sidekick

Several people in Donald Trump’s inner circle privately resent how much influence one of the president’s biggest suck-ups has over the 80-year-old.

Bill Pulte’s official role in government is to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency. However, an NBC News profile of Pulte, 38, the grandson of construction giant William Pulte, details how much sway he has with Trump, partly because he is so often in close proximity to the president.

Pulte is a near-constant presence in Trump’s life, accompanying him on domestic trips and spending entire weekends with him at his golf clubs. His presence is now rubbing other Trump figures the wrong way, especially as Pulte uses his access to pitch numerous braindead ideas to the president, sources said.

“The president loves him, even if no one else does,” another unnamed source added.

Pulte knows the best way to get Trump’s attention is with props or easy-to-read graphs, rather than lines of text.

Last month, Trump was seen holding a comically large poster aboard Air Force One that appeared to read “Kennedy Center Demolished.” Pulte was pictured standing next to Trump and was the one who presented him with the poster outlining apparent plans to tear down the venue, a source told NBC News.

Pulte is also said to have put the idea into Trump’s head of converting the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House into an indoor swimming pool. At the time, Pulte used a foam poster board showing the proposed transformation to convince the president it was a good idea.

Other ideas touted by Pulte include introducing a 50-year mortgage, which would essentially leave people in debt for most of their lives. He is also credited with pushing Trump to veto a bipartisan housing bill that Republicans were desperate to promote as a key policy response to the cost-of-living crisis.

A former administration official said Pulte often stands around the West Wing, with a poster in hand, waiting to “intercept the president” and present Trump with his latest idea.

Other Trump advisers are growing wary of how close Pulte is getting to the president.

“He will say, ‘The president wants me to be on this trip,’” one Trump adviser said. “He is always on trips, that’s his thing.” The adviser said there was no point at this stage in arguing over whether Trump had actually asked Pulte to accompany him on a trip.

Steve Bannon, a prominent MAGA figure and White House adviser during Trump’s first term, suggested that Pulte and Natalie Harp, the president’s favorite aide, are two people who are “hated by certain high-level elements on the White House staff—otherwise these relentless, vicious, anonymous personal attacks [on them] would not continue unabated in the ‘legacy media.’”

In an interview with the network last week, Trump denied that Pulte had tried to convince him to veto the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which he called a “big yawn.” The president reluctantly allowed the bill to become law in July without signing it.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Bill Pulte’s office for comment.