Hi, everyone.
I am Samantha Bee.
Welcome to Full Frontal.
Now, as you may recall, Donald Trump
ran for president on two platforms--
one, his human platform, Chris Christie, and two,
a promise to #DrainTheSwamp.
We are going to drain the swamp of corruption
in Washington, D.C.
I'm not going to let Wall Street get away with murder.
The Wall Street investors who have
rigged the regulations against the middle class.
Goldman Sachs.
They have total control over Hillary Clinton.
When you cast that ballot, just picture a Wall Street board
room, filled with the special interests who
have been bleeding your country, and your city, and every place
else--
I'll admit it was nice to see Donald
Trump concerned about bleeding that wasn't Megyn Kelly's.
Draining the swamp appeals to everyone,
except biodiversity nerds, who'd like to remind us
that swamps are a wonderful and valuable part of our ecosystem.
#NotAllSwamps.
Well, good news, gator-huggers -- Trump was lying!
Today, the Trump administration
announced its 5th straight high-profile hire
from Goldman Sachs.
As the saying goes, keep your friends close,
and your friends that you called your enemies
when you were saying any fucking thing to get elected, closer.
The Joey Fatone of Trump's Goldman boy band
is hedge fund manager and John Oliver's evil twin,
Steve Mnuchin, whose Senate confirmation
hearing is tomorrow.
You may never have heard the name Mnuchin
before other than in a diner at 2AM,
where a drunk sophomore is trying to order more nachos,
but this mystery nerd is going to be
our next Treasury Secretary.
A fact he's so sure of, he's already updated his job title
in the Yale Alumni directory.
That is real.
Aww, Steve read The Secret and made the Yale
directory his vision board.
Way to manifest.
Where were we?
Oh, right, draining the swamp.
Treasurer of the United States is an important job,
unlike the treasurer of any club in junior high school,
which is made up to give the unpopular kids something to do.
So what the heck?
Let's learn a little about his post-Goldman career.
Mnuchin made a fortune on Wall Street,
then headed to Hollywood to bankroll blockbuster films.
Smash hit movies, in some cases, like Suicide Squad.
For those not familiar, Suicide Squad
is the world's first feature that
was made by just pouring a can of Monster Energy drink
onto a reel of film.
It's also my nickname for working class
people who voted for Trump.
They are so screwed.
Of course, they were already screwed by the Great Recession
of 2008, or as Mnuchin remembers it,
the Great Recession of 2008!
When Steve Mnuchin took a financial crash
and turned it into a crash-ortunity.
Steve Mnuchin left Goldman Sachs,
bought a bank called IndyMac, changed the name of that bank,
and foreclosed on 36,000 people.
That's how Mnuchin earned the nickname "Foreclosure King,"
not to be confused with the cheapest
bed at the Mattress Warehouse.
King Steve's gross new company specialized
in reverse mortgages, a financial product targeted
at people old enough to have masterbated
to The Rockford Files.
Hi, this is James Garner for Financial Freedom.
Rawr, where do I sign?
If you're 62 or older and own your own home,
I'd like to talk to you about something you should know.
Yes, what you should know is that Financial Freedom
is a subsidiary of OneWest, whose goal was
to foreclose on IndyMac's reverse mortgages
as fast as possible.
His bank was responsible for more than one third
of all reverse mortgage foreclosures.
Just 10 days after Monroe died,
she got a letter from the bank.
It was foreclosing on the home.
She had 60 days to leave.
Why would you foreclose on my house?
I've lived here since 1963.
The person who bought the reverse mortgage
could stay in his or her house until they died.
But after death, everyone else living in the house
would have to go unless they paid back the loan.
The practice even has a name: "widow foreclosures."
Jesus, what do the other inmates do to you in jail
when they find out you're a widow forecloser?
Oh, right, nothing, because you don't go to jail.
You sell the company, take a $380 million profit,
and get promoted to Treasury Secretary before this happens:
HUD is currently investigating Financial Freedom
for this practice of widow foreclosures.
Well, at least vulnerable old ladies
will now be protected, as long as there's an alert watchdog
on the job at HUD.
What do you think he took away from today?
Oh, my luggage.
Um, hold on.
OK.
Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
Meemaw, change the locks and load the shotgun, hurry!
When they weren't snatching grandma houses,
OneWest was reportedly tricking their other customers
into defaulting.
They were told by banks that you had to be late on payments
so that you could qualify for a loan modification.
And then once you went late on a payment,
they then foreclosed on you.
They foreclosed on us.
That same year, Florida resident Ossie Lofton,
who had taken a reverse mortgage, the company
foreclosed on the 90-year-old Lofton
after a 27-cent payment error.
Okay, but to be fair, when that 90-year-old lady was born,
27 cents would buy you 3 chickens
and a hand-cranked vibrator.
Mnuchin might pine for the glory days of high-risk lending
that crashed the world economy, but fortunately, the man
who's getting evicted from his home this Friday
put in place some pretty good protections to make
sure that doesn't happen again.
So don't worry.
We're safe.
We want to strip back parts of Dodd-Frank that
prevent banks from lending.
What about the Volcker Rule and the Consumer Protection Bureau?
Well, you know, I would just say we're going
to look at all these things.
Look at them how?
Oh god! There were so many widows in there!
Let's hope and pray that the next 4 years
will be like Steve's film, Suicide
Squad, where the group of bad guys
end up actually saving the day.
But it'll 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.
We'll be right back.