Trump Can Now Re-Create the Housing Crisis That Got Him Elected

After meeting with Wall Street executives today, President Donald Trump signed a directive to begin dismantling the federal regulations enacted after the financial crisis to prevent the same thing from happening again. The end of Dodd-Frank could return the nation’s financial system to the Wild West days that prevailed before 2008—the lending environment that precipitated the Great Recession.

President Trump’s sweeping directive is darkly ironic. For starters, he castigated the Wall Street players at the heart of the foreclosure crisis during his campaign. Trump once called JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon “the worst banker in the United States.” As president, he has invited Dimon into his circle of Wall Street confidants, whom he met with on Friday.