Here’s who White House staffers like in a cage match between Scott Bessent and Bill Pulte

If there’s ever a bloody cage match between Scott Bessent and Bill Pulte, White House staffers know who they’ll be rooting for.

Last week, Bessent – Trump’s usually mild-mannered Treasury secretary – reportedly threatened to punch Pulte, Trump’s Federal House Finance chief, in his “f–ing face”. Top players in the White House can’t wait for Bessent to get started, On The Money has learned.

Or as one Trump insider put it: “Beat that little midget’s ass.”

That’s because Pulte – the 37-year-old former scion of the Pulte single-family homebuilding empire — has gained a reputation inside the West Wing as an annoying, sharp-elbowed publicity hound, sources told On The Money. 

Most White House officials, sources tell me, would love nothing more than having Bessent, who is over six feet in height, beat down Pulte, who’s around my height at 5′ 8”.

“The general consensus in the White House is that Scott would have beat that little midget’s ass and everyone would have paid big money to watch it happen,” one person close to the president’s inner circle told me.

Maybe Trump can officiate? After all, Bessent is one of his closest advisers. On the other hand, the president loves Pulte’s recent public attacks on social media against Jerome Powell, joining Trump in calling on the Fed chair to quit.

Ditto in the case of Lisa Cook, the Fed governor who Pulte has accused of mortgage fraud – again very publicly instead of referring what he found to AG Pam Bondi. Bessent has also persuaded Trump not to immediately ditch Powell and let the Fed chair’s term run out so as not to spook the markets.

Most of the executive branch, however, isn’t too keen on Pulte’s antics, nor are the upper echelons of MAGA. Bessent, meanwhile, has won widespread backing for his deft handling of the economy and smooth spinning of Trump trade policies.

Neither Bessent through his rep nor Pulte responded to a request for comment.

Things got heated last week during a dinner at the Executive Branch social club in DC’ attended by MAGA insiders and top Trump officials including Bessent and Pulte. Bessent accused Pulte of trashing him to the president, according to Politico. 

Before dinner was served Bessent got into Pulte’s face, and reportedly snapped: “Why the f— are you talking to the president about me? F— you.” Adding “I’m gonna punch you in your f—ing face,”

Things got so heated that the club’s co-owner, MAGA insider Omeed Malik, had to break things up. According to Politico, Bessent told Pulte, “We could go outside…I’m going to f–ing beat your ass.”

Specifics remain murky, though Pulte is pushing for a privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Bessent might consider his turf since the Treasury technically controls the mortgage giants currently in conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis.

Pulte does have his supporters in the White House, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and the person who really matters, President Trump. But that’s about it. The general consensus is that Pulte was always an odd choice to be running the massive Federal House Finance Agency, which oversees the $8 trillion mortgage market.

He received his college degree in journalism, though he worked for a time in private equity. He had a fraught relationship with the giant home building company founded by his grandfather. The PulteGroup; they parted ways with him in 2020 following a management dispute.

Pulte has engaged in various nasty social media wars in recent years over his advocacy of risky meme stocks, many of which have imploded in value after the mania ended. Indeed, he and I butted heads last year on Fox Business when I asked him about his meme obsession, and whether he “might be getting people into a stock that’s going to crash more.”

He called the meme stock craze “a movement” of small investors tired of an unlevel playing field in trading stocks and the economy in general. Average investors, he added, are “pissed at these executives who pocket all this money and then drive these companies into the ground … This is not fair to the average American.”

He also got on Trump’s radar with his pocketbook. He and his wife contributed over $1 million to Trump in recent years.

Still, his appointment to the FHFA shocked people inside the administration given his thin resume. He’s leading an administration that aims to privatize Fanne Mae and Freddie Mac. The deal could be one the biggest and most complex transactions ever since Fannie and Freddie are now held by the government and function basically as part of the Treasury Department.

“Trump loved the mortgage fraud stuff,” one MAGA insider told me. But the president “should remove Pulte from FHFA and make him mortgage fraud czar to get him out of the White House.”