Samantha Bee introduces you to Trump's swampy treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin

(Image credit: Full Frontal/YouTube)

last updated 19 January 2017

One of Donald Trump's two platforms when he ran for president was #DrainTheSwamp, Samantha Bee noted on Wednesday's Full Frontal (the other being, cruelly, Chris Christie). Trump specifically railed against the influence of Wall Street and, in particular, Goldman Sachs. Everybody loved the swamp-draining idea, except some alligator-loving environmentalists (and Trump himself). "Well, good news, gator-huggers," Bee said. "Trump was lying!" Of the five Goldman Sachs alumni Trump has picked for his inner circle, Bee focused on Steven Mnuchin, the nominee for treasury secretary. His Senate confirmation hearing is Thursday, she noted, though he has already given himself the job on his Yale alumni directory profile.

After getting rich on Wall Street, Mnuchin went to Hollywood and bankrolled movies like Suicide Squad. But the most problematic title on his résumé is "foreclosure king." During the great recession of 2008, "Steve Mnuchin took a crash and turned it into a crash-ortunity," Bee said. The bank he bought and renamed OneWest subsequently foreclosed on 36,000 people, specializing in "widow foreclosures" on reverse mortgages. Bee showed a few of the sadder foreclosure tales from OneWest's rampage. The bank's future now lies in the hands of the Housing and Urban Development Department — and thus, probably, Dr. Ben Carson. Bee despaired.

She ended her look at the likely next treasury secretary by showing him talking about wanting to scrap the financial regulation put in place to prevent another big banking collapse. "Lets hope and pray that the next four years will be like Steve's film Suicide Squad, where the group of bad guys end up actually saving the day," Bee said. "But it will probably be like Steve's film Entourage — most people didn't want it, it disappointed those who did, and it only helped those who were directly involved in it." Watch below — and be warned, there is some NSFW language. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.