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.
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