Wall Street is getting cut out of Trump 2.0

Emily Stewart

Wed, Mar 12, 2025, 1:02 AM 12 min read

Lately, on Twitter/X/whatever you want to call it these days, there's been a noticeable uptick in nostalgia for Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary during President Donald Trump's first term.

"Come back Steve Mnuchin I miss you Steve Mnuchin," one user wrote in early March. "Steve Mnuchin was the best Trump 1 cabinet member. It almost makes up for suicide squad," wrote another. "Mnuchin was probably the most competent cabinet appointment of the last 3 administrations and I'm not sure it's particularly close," wrote another. "Mnuchin didn't do anything mental and now he's viewed with nostalgia," wrote another.

Mnuchin's four years in the administration were busy: He shepherded through the tax cut bill in 2017, warning before the legislation's passage that stocks would crash if it didn't get the go-ahead. When COVID-19 swept in, he was instrumental in striking a deal with Congress to deliver economic relief. Throughout his tenure, he kept everybody calm about the debt ceiling. On a lighter note, he and his super-beautiful wife, Louise Linton, posed for photos with the sheet of dollar bills that got them compared to James Bond villains — an outrage that seems quaint in this day and age.

In Trump 1.0, the New York City-born financier served as a sort of Wall Street whisperer in the White House. Mnuchin was the guy who reassured markets everything was going to be all right. He was one of the adults in the room, a serious person whose presence emanated seriously good outcomes, business-wise. (He's so serious, in fact, that he's always Steven, never Steve, and will correct people if they screw it up.)

With the markets currently in meltdown mode, largely thanks to Trump, Mnuchin (or a Mnuchin type) is someone many on Wall Street would very much like to have back. They'd like a Mnuchin-esque Money Dad to come tuck them in at night and tell them not to worry about big bad tariffs or a potential recession hiding underneath the bed. In the absence of such a figure, investors are facing a Trump 2.0 who isn't as concerned about their feelings — or, more importantly, holdings — as they'd hoped. He's listening to Silicon Valley a lot more than he is Wall Street, to the extent he's listening to anyone. Sure, Trump's got a new Wall Street-attached treasury secretary, hedge funder Scott Bessent, but investors are still figuring out how to measure him. He just defended tariffs by saying cheap goods aren't part of the American dream. In the internet's collective imagination, Steven Mnuchin would never.