HOUSES OF PAIN

Trump’s big new housing plan? A lifetime of debt, in the form of 50-year mortgages. Even MAGAworld thinks this idea is cursed.

• How would you like to plunk down $776,400 for a house that’s worth $300,000… and then spend the rest of your natural life working off the difference? Sound like a path to financial security? Well, President Donald Trump thinks it’s a peachy idea. And he’s hoping millions of Americans who can’t afford a home will sign up, once his administration approves new 50-year mortgages.

• The plan does have a single upside: Somewhat lower monthly payments. But the total cost ends up much, much higher, due to the longer timeframe, as the figures above suggest (they come directly from Fannie Mae’s Mortgage Calculator). Experts say 50-year-long mortgages (two decades longer than most regulated mortgages are permitted to be under a law passed after the 2008 financial crisis) would likely make it harder for Americans to use home-ownership to build wealth.

• Even MAGA hates it. “In debt forever, in debt for life!” howled Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on X. Fox Business host Charles Payne acknowledged that there would be monthly savings, but pointed out that the two decades of added interest could effectively double the cost of buying a home. “That’s not the way to do this, right? There are so many other ways,” he said.

• MAGA is “enraged” at the idea, right-wing media personality Laura Ingraham told Trump in an interview last night, and sees the initiative as “a giveaway to the banks and simply prolonging the time it would take for Americans to own a home outright. Is that really a good idea?”

• Trump didn’t wanna hear it. “It’s not even a big deal,” he shrugged. “I mean, you know, you go from 40 to 50 years.” Ingraham corrected him: “Thirty to 50.”

You’d think a real estate mogul would understand, y’know, home ownership. But Trump seems weirdly confused about the details.

• Where did Trump get this ridiculous idea? On Saturday, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte reportedly strolled into Trump’s Palm Beach Gold Club carrying a 3-by-5 poster board titled “Great American Presidents.” The image depicted former President Franklin D. Roosevelt with “30-year mortgages” over his head, and Trump with “50-year mortgages” over his. Only minutes later, Trump posted the image on Truth Social, Politico reports.

• Now Pulte is under fire for convincing Trump to support a hilariously terrible combination of bad policy and bad politics.“He just sold POTUS a bill of goods that wasn’t necessarily accurate,” one source told the outlet. “He said ‘FDR did it, you can do it, it’s gonna be a big thing.’ But he didn’t tell him about all the unintended consequences.”

• Even Truth Social users, the ultimate diehard MAGA fanatics, bashed Trump’s idea. “50 years?! 30 years is bad enough! How about you make things more affordable? No one wants to give banks all that interest. I’m missing something here…” one user wrote, whose username includes #ISTANDWITHTRUMP.

Another wrote: “Has your account been hacked? On what planet does this seem like a good thing?”

Call out: Did you or someone you know vote for Mamdani, Sherrill or Spanberger in the last election… after voting for Trump?

If so, then Alex Wagner’s hot new podcast Runaway Country wants to hear from you! Send us a note at [email protected], and let’s talk!

DEMOCRATIC PARTY PEOPLE

How big is the “big tent” Democrats are trying to build? Even Hasan Piker, one of America’s most prominent leftists, says he’s starting to feel like he’s in the club.

“I have had closed-door private meetings with a lot of people that I never thought would desperately want to talk to someone like myself,” Piker told What A Day on the sidelines of Crooked Con last week. “People who have greater ambitions within the party structure, people who are representatives of the old guard.”

Most of those conversations are about how to reach young people, said Piker, who was once described as “A Progressive Mind in a MAGA Body” by the New York Times. But his ascendance into mainstream Democratic politics shows where the party may be headed.

A 34-year-old Twitch streamer with millions of online followers, Piker was seen as too radical to pal around with middle-of-the-road politicians just a few years ago. His controversial statements often land him in hot water, from remarks on the Sept. 11 attacks to the hypothetical assassination of a Republican senator.

But Dems are straying away from political purity tests. And Piker’s fundamental message aligns with the party’s new mantra: Make life more affordable and fair for average folks.

Piker wants to see more candidates fall in line with the strategy of NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist whose campaign primarily focused on improving everyday peoples’ lives.

In order to win moving forward, “we are going to have a vision … that is unafraid to say, yeah, it is actually the super wealthy in this country that have fucked you over,” Piker said. “If we don’t do that, we’re constantly going to lose.”

WHAT ELSE?

The U.K. stopped sharing intelligence with the U.S. about suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean because it doesn’t want to be complicit in the Trump administration’s deadly strikes, which it believes are illegal, CNN reports. Last month, the U.N. human rights chief described the strikes as “extrajudicial killing.”

A Chicago family accused ICE agents of pepper-spraying their 1-year-old daughter and other family members in a retail store parking lot last week. The Department of Homeland Security said that its agents don’t pepper-spray children, and denied that the alleged event took place.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune secured a provision in the shutdown deal that will allow senators to sue the federal government over the Biden administration’s seizure of their phone records. Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed phone records from multiple senators to find out who Trump called after the January 6 riots — not to spy on them. But GOP senators are furious about the seizure, and now, if their lawsuits are successful, they may soon each receive half-million dollar paydays. Pretty good to be the guys who make the law sometimes, huh?

Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to toss out the $5 million civil judgement that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Caroll. It’s unclear whether the Supreme Court will take up the case.

A Navy officer was slated to become the first woman to serve as a SEAL Team Six troop commander in history, but her command was abruptly canceled two weeks before the ceremony, CNN reports. The situation appears to be a stark example of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to minimize women’s roles in the military, multiple Navy sources told the outlet. “They want to keep it the brotherhood and don’t like that she’s coming in and challenging the status quo,” one Navy special operations source said.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE EMAIL…

A Utah judge rejected a GOP-proposed congressional map, a major win for Democrats who now have a solidly-blue district covering Salt Lake City.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) defended his decision to sell kneepads with Donald Trump’s signature on them. “Signature series. Sold out at the moment,” Newsom told CNN. “Because people have sold out, because universities have been selling out, because law firms have been selling out, because corporate leaders have been selling out. People are selling out this country.” Spoken like a likely 2028 presidential candidate!

“South Park” co-creator Trey Parker vowed to keep the show running for years to come, despite backlash from the Trump administration for its, um, highly unflattering depiction of the president. “Next year will be different,” Parker told the New York Times. “If there’s one thing we know, it is that our show will be a lot longer than theirs.”

A right-wing outlet’s much-hyped exposé accusing a CIA employee of planting pipe bombs in Washington, D.C. on January 6 has rapidly fallen apart, even drawing criticism from conservatives. What’s more, “if its claims prove false, the Blaze could be left holding the bag for a potentially mammoth libel suit,” The xxxxxx writes.

What does Pope Leo watch after a long day’s work? According to the Vatican, his favorite movies include “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Sound of Music,” “Ordinary People,” and “Life Is Beautiful.” Okay, good choices. But which do you think is better: Shrek 1 or Shrek 2?

Doctors from Scotland and the U.S. performed what’s believed to be the first remote-control operated stroke surgery… conducted across the Atlantic. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!