That no one, aside perhaps from Eddie Lampert, likes or respects Steve Mnuchin is pretty much a matter of record at this point. Not his boss, not his colleagues, not the Senate Minority Leader or anyone else in Congress, not his underlings (however few of them there are), not the companies he purports to regulate, not the Europeans, not high-end real-estate buyers, certainly not lower-end real-estate buyers, not college kids, not anyone who’s actually looked in to the things he’s done as Treasury secretary, not Ray Dalio, not Mike Novogratz, not even his father or his wife. That all being said, the animosity towards him within his own family goes much further and deeper than even people who’ve had the misfortune of meeting Mnuchin could have possibly imagined or hoped.
“His politics appall me, too, really appall me,” [Bob Mnuchin] replied, according to Mr. Saunders. “But he’s my son….”
Robert Mnuchin’s wife, Adriana, has reminded people that she is not Steven’s biological mother. (The couple married when he was a toddler.) She reluctantly attended Steven’s 2017 wedding to the Scottish-born actress Louise Linton. Ms. Mnuchin pretended her arm was injured in order to avoid having to shake hands with Mr. Trump, according to her grandson Zan Mnuchin Rozen.
Even Ms. Linton has said people shouldn’t assume she shares her husband’s politics.
Mr. Rozen, 22, wrote on Facebook in June that “my uncle has been complicit in, and in some cases directly culpable for, many years of the marginalization, persecution and stereotyping of black people in the United States.” His actions “cannot and will never be defensible….”
Mr. Mnuchin said in one of two recent interviews for this article that he tried to avoid discussing politics with his family.
That ability to ignore the things that are right in front of you have served Mnuchin well, insofar as he’s still Treasury secretary in spite of being terrible at it, and it’s also how he manages to be so in touch with the common man and his plight.
Mr. Mnuchin spoke regularly to the CNBC host Jim Cramer. Mr. Cramer seemed positioned to understand the plight of small companies because he owned a Mexican and an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. When Mr. Mnuchin called in to his show, Mr. Cramer said small businesses needed money but couldn’t afford to go deeper into debt.
Indeed, it’s apparently the way Mnuchin got the job in the first place. A man with his record and any self-awareness wouldn’t be playing it up, but Steve-O lacks it, and with it the ability to understand why the second paragraph below is such a devastating indictment of him, the administration for which he works and America in general.
Mr. Mnuchin showed up for his job interview at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., with three pages of notes detailing his credentials: He made partner at Goldman; he ran a hedge fund, Dune Capital; he earned a fortune buying and selling IndyMac Bank in California; he financed a slate of Hollywood movies.
Mr. Mnuchin’s career was a success — his net worth was more than $400 million — but he was hardly a top-tier financial player. He had never been a candidate to lead Goldman; Dune was small by hedge fund standards; IndyMac was tainted by allegations of abusive foreclosures; quite a few of his films were flops.
Steven Mnuchin Tried to Save the Economy. Not Even His Family Is Happy. [NYT]