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Scott Bessent Is Doing a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Job

The treasury secretary’s pronouncements keep missing the mark—wildly, weirdly, and dangerously.

when hedge-fund billionaire Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent was nominated last fall by Donald Trump to serve as the nation’s 79th secretary of the treasury, the thinking from optimistic observers was that—in contrast to the clown-car crew that was circling around the president-elect—he might be something of an adult in the room.

With four decades of experience in global finance, first as a key player on the Soros Fund Management team and then as the chief executive officer and chief investment officer of his own Key Square Capital Management, Bessent had a record of working with Democrats and Republicans. He came across as a calm, cool, and collected member of the billionaire class who just might guard against the worst instincts of a frequently bankrupted and economically delusional president.

There was no way that Bessent was going to address wealth inequality or support the responsible tax policies that would make people like him pay their fair share. But he didn’t come off as a fever-dreaming lunatic who would spout the sort of economic nonsense that Trump and his inner circle favored. Bessent talked a lot about cutting taxes and reducing debts and deficits—standard, if often conflicting, GOP goals—and eschewed Trump’s more extreme language when it came to tariffs, suggesting that he saw them as tools to be employed judiciously, in pursuit of a “one-time price adjustment” that was “not inflationary,” rather than an across-the-board assault on the framework of the modern global economy.

As a result, 15 Senate Democrats, and independent Senator Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, joined Republicans in voting to confirm Bessent on Monday, with corporate-friendly Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) saying, “While I disagree with many of his policy positions, particularly his support for extending tax cuts for the wealthy and President Trump’s tariff threats, I hope that he will focus the Treasury Department on bringing down costs for middle-class Americans.”

That hope has been dashed by Bessent.

In an administration that sends reliably unreliable signals regarding the economy, the treasury secretary has distinguished himself as a steady source of ill-advised talking points and wildly inaccurate predictions. And they keep coming, amid market chaos and mounting speculation that Trump’s tantrum tariffs might ultimately collapse the economy in ways that bring to mind the tortured legacy of Republican President Herbert Hoover.

Last month, Bessent asserted that Trump’s decision to slap major tariffs on China would not harm US consumers. “China will pay for the tariffs because their business model is exporting their way out of this inflation,” he claimed. “They will eat any tariffs that go on.”

This week, China announced that it would counter Trump’s tariff moves by raising retaliatory duties on US imports to 84 percent. NBC’s report from Hong Kong was headlined: “China is matching Trump tariff for tariff. It has other ways it can strike back, too.” Things have gone so awry that, even as Trump backed off some reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, he hiked tariffs on Chinese goods to 125 percent.

But Bessent has not only been misreading the global picture. He has also proven to be wildly out of touch with the concerns of Americans who are watching their retirement portfolios evaporate. On Sunday, after a two-day downturn that saw stock values collapse by 10 percent—wiping out at least $6 trillion in investor assets, and doing severe damage to the 401(k) accounts into which working Americans were encouraged to deposit their life savings—Bessent told Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, “Americans who have put away for years in their savings [account] don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening.”

In fact, they were doing just that; as an NBC headline from two days earlier reported, “Retirees ‘stunned’ as market turmoil over tariffs shrinks their 401(k)s.” The network explained, “Some are changing their spending habits while others are worried about their future quality of life.”

In the same Meet the Press interview, Trump’s treasury secretary said, “I see no reason that we have to price in a recession”—even as a usual Trump apologist, billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, was warning that an ill-thought-out and overly aggressive tariff regimen could lead to a circumstance where “the massive increase in uncertainty drives the economy into a recession, potentially a severe one.”

Bessent also asserted on Sunday, “Interest rates hit their low for the year, so I’m expecting mortgage applications to pick up.” But instability in the bond market, which had already begun to surface before Sunday, pointed to the prospect that mortgage rates would spike. And, sure enough, fixed rates for a 30-year mortgage jumped into the 7 percent range this week, reaching a two-month high.

By Wednesday, Bessent was being mercilessly mocked for getting pretty much everything wrong in his public pronouncements. The treasury secretary finally seemed to recognize that his cheerleading for Trump’s tantrum tariffs had gone awry. There were reports of behind-the-scenes meetings where Bessent was starting to warn Trump that the administration’s bombastic messaging on tariffs needed to be adjusted.

“It was imperative to get the administration’s tariff communications aligned, Bessent told Trump, and more focused on the endgame for Americans: better trade deals with foreign nations, according to people familiar with the conversation,” CNN explained on Monday. “The risk in not doing so would be further market turmoil, Bessent conveyed.”

Further market turmoil ensued on Tuesday, and as the bond market went off the rails on Wednesday, Trump announced his partial pause, sparking another wild fluctuation—this time a surge—in the markets.

No serious observer imagines that the chaos is finished. CNN’s Monday report on the treasury secretary’s attempt to reframe messaging featured a note saying, “Just as Bessent posted on social media about leading negotiations with Japan, trade adviser Peter Navarro published a new opinion article in the Financial Times, staking out a firm line against easing off the tariffs and declaring, once again, ‘This is not a negotiation.’”

It also reported that

another of Trump’s top economic advisers acknowledged there were a variety of viewpoints. “There are conflicting narratives because everyone’s got an opinion,” said Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, during a speech at the Hudson Institute. “That’s fine. Disagreement is how you can avoid group think.” Still, the conflicting narratives’ emanating from the White House have also generated confusion on Wall Street and in foreign capitals.

It was even worse on Main Street and at the kitchen tables of working Americans, despite Scott Bessent’s claim that most Americans “don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening.” “The market pummeled 401(k) accounts last week,” Yahoo Finance reported Wednesday. “Panic selling ensued.” Many Americans shifted from stocks to bonds, only to be greeted Wednesday afternoon by the headline: “Wild swings in Treasurys have investors worried something is about to ‘blow up’ in markets.”

These are the moments when people need a sound, serious secretary of the treasury who can inspire confidence. Unfortunately, they’re stuck with Scott Bessent.