They Made a Killing on the Mortgage Crisis. Now They Run Trump's America.

Some of the people who screwed over American families during the Great Recession of 2008 are still around, and they're lurking in the shadows: they're in President Donald Trump's orbit, and in his cabinet. Steve Mnuchin. Wilbur Ross. These are just two swamp-dwellers who foreclosed on the sick and elderly during a time when millions of jobs were lost in the biggest layoffs since 1945. Now, some of these modern-day robber barons are helping write national housing policies. What does that mean for the American dream? Soon after the crash, Aaron Glantz, a senior reporter for Reveal, started going around San Francisco knocking on doors, meeting people who were falling back on their skyrocketing mortgages and about to give into the banks. He noticed something strange. These homes were being foreclosed on, bought, and sold by the same few people, and they were making a killing. Glantz wrote about it in his recent book "Homewreckers", which was released in October. On this show, he tells host Jamilah King how the swamp creatures from the mortgage crisis are being resuscitated by Trump.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices