FHFA chief Pulte unleashes social media barrage, blames Powell for crushing housing market
Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), unleashed a wave of social media attacks over the weekend targeting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Over the weekend, Pulte posted and shared more than a dozen messages on social platform X, demanding Powell’s resignation and accusing him of harming Americans and the mortgage market by keeping interest rates too high.
“I am calling for Federal Reserve Chairman, Jay Powell, to resign,” Pulte wrote in a Thursday post on X, pinning the message to the top of his profile.
In another post, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac overseer said he was taking this step, “[b]ecause he [Powell] is hurting Americans and hurting the mortgage market, which I am responsible for regulating.”
Pulte’s online barrage came just before the Federal Reserve’s widely anticipated decision to hold its benchmark interest rate steady, at a range between 4.25% and 4.5%, citing continued economic strength and inflation uncertainty.
Both Pulte and former president Trump have criticized Powell and the central bank for not cutting rates further, even as the US unemployment rate hovers near historic lows. Trump has repeatedly accused Powell of keeping rates at crisis-era levels unnecessarily.
Trump, too, has repeatedly lashed out at Powell since appointing him, while Pulte has focused his criticism on the housing sector’s slowdown and elevated borrowing costs.
“As Chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I can tell you that Jay Powell is hurting the housing market by being Too Late to lower rates. He needs to resign, effective immediately,” Pulte posted Wednesday.
It is so totally reckless to keep rates where they are at. Mortgage rates were 3% and went to 7%. This is crazy. This crushed affordability. Inflation is down. Mortgage rates, and interest rates, need to come down. Jerome Powell is doing a great injustice to this Country.
— Pulte (@pulte) June 19, 2025
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate remains close to 7%, a level economic and political commentator Peter Schiff thinks is "too low."
"Rates are not high. They are still too low," Schiff, chief economist and global strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management, wrote on X. “Look at all the consumer and government borrowing. Look how low the savings rate is. Look at the price of gold. Those are sure signs that interest rates are too low."
Jerome Powell is a main reason for the Housing Supply Crisis in this Country. By improperly keeping interest rates high, Jerome Powell is trapping homeowners in low-rate mortgages and choking off existing home sales—directly fueling the housing supply crisis. He must lower rates.
— Pulte (@pulte) June 20, 2025
Pulte said that "there is no legitimate factual basis to keep rates high."
Despite the pressure, Powell is just one of 12 officials on the Federal Open Market Committee, and all voted unanimously to keep rates steady. The Fed’s “dual mandate” under federal law requires it to balance unemployment and inflation, not cutting rates just to stimulate individual sectors like housing.
“It takes some time for tariffs to work their way through the chain of distribution to the end consumer,” Powell said at a press conference Wednesday. “We’re beginning to see some effects, and we do expect to see more of them over coming months.
“What we’re waiting for, to reduce rates, is to understand what will happen with the tariff inflation. There’s a lot of uncertainty about that.
“Someone has to pay the tariffs … between the manufacturer, the exporter, the importer, the retailer, ultimately somebody putting it into a good of some kind — or just the consumer buying it.”
Read more: 'It's not complicated': Powell outlines Fed's rate strategy amid Trump criticism
While political pressure from presidents is nothing new for Fed chairs, Pulte’s direct attacks mark an unprecedented rift between two independent financial regulators. Both the Fed and FHFA are designed by Congress to operate independently, free from short-term political influence.
The FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mortgage-financing giants placed under federal conservatorship following the 2008 financial crisis. The firms buy, securitize, and guarantee trillions of dollars in US residential mortgages.
Powell, for his part, dismissed questions about the criticism, repeating his commitment to serve through the end of his term in 2026, and possibly as a Fed governor until 2028 if he so chooses.
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