@BillAckman on CNBC this morning, full transcript: (part 1) Host: Speaking of disappointment in the short term, Fannie and Freddie have been a drag, and I know you’ve had high hopes that the Trump administration is going to finally make a move here to privatize. It’s taken longer than expected. I did get some comments from Secretary Bessent in a podcast this week saying, I think he said ’27 or ’28. They still want to go forward. “I would imagine next year or the year after we will be tackling the ownership structure.” Do you still have high conviction that this is going to happen? Are you still bullish? Bill Ackman: Yes, very bullish. And actually, to point out, our relative underperformance this year in large part is driven by Fannie and Freddie. These are stocks that went from $3 to $15 or so last year and went from $15 to $3 this year. You know, they became fairly sizable positions. We own well north of 200 million shares combined of the companies. So this was a very big sort of headwind for us. Now, why did we hold it when the stock was up 5x? Because we again believe our view of what’s going to happen here. Look, actually, what’s not talked about: it’s actually absolutely politically critical for Fannie and Freddie to be released from conservatorship before the end of the Trump administration. Why is that the case? Because this is an enormously cash-flow-generative asset that in the hands, for example, of a Democratic administration could be used in a manner that is politically very threatening to the Republican Party—the control of who gets access to mortgages. There were issues during the Biden administration where there were mortgages being granted to people on favorable terms because of skin color and other such initiatives. It’s a tool that can be used in a very political manner. So, having met with the administration about this topic, I think they view it as absolutely mission critical that they’re both released from conservatorship. We’ve put forth a very straightforward plan that will get it done more efficiently. Actually, it’s really important that the stock is in the hands of institutional investors and is privatized to protect this from becoming a politically controlled asset. That is well understood at the highest levels of the Trump administration. I think the administration toyed with some other alternative approaches to taking these companies public. There was an initiative, I understand, where Fannie and Freddie would be combined under a new holding company—I don’t know if you saw the tweet from the president about something called the Great American Mortgage Company—where Fannie and Freddie would stay in conservatorship and there would be this new holding company put on top. You know, it is not a viable structure. The simplest outcome here that creates the most value for the American taxpayer is just simply accounting for the $300 billion of payments that have been made by Fannie and Freddie to the Treasury, fully repaying the $191 billion that was advanced during the financial crisis, and then an uplisting to a major exchange like the New York Stock Exchange. And the president rings the bell, announces a major hundreds of billions of value creation for the American people, and then he tasks the Treasury Secretary and Director Pulte with resolving the conservatorship, which is a process of finalizing the capital rules.