One of the key draws of Omeed Malik’s Executive Branch social club in DC is no are reporters allowed. The rule helped him attract his A-list MAGA clientele who are often at odds with the media – the Washington press corps in particular.
But what Malik didn’t count on, according to people who know him, is that his mainstream media-hating customers are also big leakers to the dreaded MSM, as evidenced by reports that a vicious smackdown almost occurred on his premises between two top MAGA figures, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal House Finance Agency chief Bill Pulte, On The Money has learned.
Malik is trying to remain neutral, though he can’t understand why his members would leak the near fisticuffs to the press.
“It’s funny because Omeed told his customers that he would never have journalists in his club and then they go leak to them anyway,” said one person close to the matter. “You can’t make this sh-t up.”
As reported last week, Bessent – Trump’s usually mild-mannered Treasury secretary – reportedly threatened to punch Pulte in his “f–king face.” And as we exclusively broke, top players in the White House can’t wait for Bessent to get started because they view Pulte as a publicity hound with sharp elbows.
As one Trump insider said: “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.
The near-fight occurred before a dinner party of MAGA heavy hitters. According to eyewitnesses, during cocktails Bessent got into Pulte’s face, and reportedly snapped: “Why the f–k are you talking to the president about me? F–k you.” Adding “I’m gonna punch you in your f–king face.”
Things got so heated that Malik, the club’s co-owner and himself a MAGA insider, had to break things up
It’s at that point that Bessent told Pulte, “We could go outside…I’m going to f–king beat your ass,” Politico reported.
“(Malik) needed to de-escalate that’s for sure, “ one eyewitness said.
Bessent, Pulte and Malik didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Pulte maintains a very active social media feed where he opines on everything from the housing market to firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, which isn’t his call.
Bessent, who is well liked in the administration, accused Pulte of bad-mouthing him to Trump after he cautioned the president that the firing would roil the markets.
Yes, most of MAGA want Powell gone, of course. But they would also love nothing more than having Bessent, who is over six feet in height, beat down Pulte, who’s around my height at 5-foot-8.
Too bad Trump wasn’t there to officiate. Bessent is one of his closest advisers. But the president also loves Pulte’s recent public attacks on social media against Powell, joining Trump in calling on the Fed chair to quit even if many in the White House can’t stand those antics..
Specifics of the feud remain murky, though Pulte – the 37-year-old estranged scion of the Pulte single-family homebuilding empire – may have also angered Bessent over his plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bessent might consider Fannie and Freddie 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, Trump. That said, 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 Pulte Group 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 generous donations. He and his wife contributed over $1 million to Trump in recent years.
“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.”
