Bulwark Takes - Scott Bessent Is a Political Hack. Treasury Can’t Survive That.

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

In a financial crisis, the markets need to trust the Treasury Secretary and the Fed chair. After watching Scott Bessent posture and preen his way through a NYT interview, it’s clear he can’t be trusted with either role. JVL and Tim give their take on just how dangerous it would be if Trump puts someone this political in charge of the Fed. Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/BULWARKTAKES. Promo Code BULWARKTAKES

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend at the bulwark, Tim Miller. And this morning, the Secretary of these United States is Treasury set down, Mr. Scott Besant with Besant, Besant. Sat down with the great Aaron Ross Sorkland at a New York Times, one of the things they do. And boy, it was something. Here it is. I'm going in blind. You told me that it was so good that I just, we're going to watch it together live. I want people to be able to see my natural facial reaction because they know my views on, you know,

he's not my favorite, let's just say, Mr. Stuffy Shirty. This is a new normal. Andrew, there's no new normal. And, you know, I can tell you that I actually don't read the New York Times anymore. But sometimes I do watch CNBC, but, you know, occasionally people send me articles. Like, there's just this fever of swamp.

And, you know, you're now a pop historian with 1929. And, you know, in 20, 30, 40, 50 years, the New York Times is no longer the paper of record. I'm, you can't go, you know, I read this article, like, President Trump is slowing down. President Trump's mineral capacity. Yeah. It is 100% fake that, like, he only called me twice at two in the morning last week instead of three times. You're saying he called you. I believe that he called you at two or three in the morning.

That whole narrative, and this is why people, like, this is why young people are going to TikTok. You know, the story, like somebody sent it to me. Mike Johnson is believer that he and his wife were so tired. They gave actually a very sympathetic and funny interview that somehow got twisted on the pages of the New York Times into this. But, you know, it's just. Let me say this, though. Just if I could. I think that what is happening here.

And I will just defend that article for a moment. I had nothing to do with it. But I think part of it is, if you remember, the media, including the Times and others, got criticized for not raising more issues around the health of Joe Biden. You remember this? And by the way, we did actually on this stage with the vice president of the United States back then. But nonetheless, I think there was a lot of criticism about that. And so I think there's now a renewed sense that given people's age that we should be doing

more in that space. I don't want to overstate it. It's not something I wrote. But I'm just trying to you had what was the greatest, one of the greatest scandals of all time, the coverage of the Biden administration, Joe Biden's diminished capacity and the cover up. And that's why it's probably there to raise these questions. Where was in New York time? We just had a three-hour cabinet meeting yesterday, Andrew, for 10 months. During when she fell asleep, all right, that's enough. So this is only the first clip. We're going to listen to another clip in a minute. But Tim, he doesn't even read the New York Times anymore. And the bias of the paper is why the kids, the Utes, get their news from TikTok. Yeah. Maybe he should be reading. We'll probably

help him to read the news, I would think, in his job. Like, this is obviously a performance act. It's one of those things. It's very J.D. Vance-esque, where it's like, you know, we, they look at Trump and they they say what this guy's secret sauce is is that he doesn't take any guff from nobody he's going he always fights he's going to make these jokes he makes fun of him he calls him the enemy of the people but like trump is crazy and irresponsible and it's gross but it kind of it feels natural like it feels like that's like the whole thing about trump where like he's a liar but it feels true that's what his people do like that works for him right it's like when he's mad at them he's really mad and then he's making jokes are kind of funny and scott besant and jaddy vans are just condescending pricks

with no sauce and they think that they can like borrow some of trump sauce by going into these interviews and instead of engaging with the questions that are being asked by a smart fair person like indra ross sorkan he's like i'm just going to attack the new york times and and then you know the maga chuds are going to cheer for me and go yay scott beset and it's like no it doesn't work it's awkward you seem weird You seem like you're not interested in doing your job. And the attacks aren't even funny. It feels very defensive. It's painful.

It's painful to watch, really. It is painful to watch and it is gross. But here's the difference. So J.D. Vance does it because he wants the brass ring. He wants to be president. And so he has two audiences. He has the audience of Trump, then the audiences of the, the Magauma.

Scott Besson as a technocrat. Like, he doesn't need to do this. This is pure succor to Trump. He thinks it'll make Trump happy. Right. But also, why does he need

Trump to be happy? I mean, he's just the secretary of the treasury. Like, he's not a political animal. He's never sort of really been involved in politics to high levels before. And that gets us to the next piece. Well, just really quick for the next piece, it also gets us to the cabinet meeting that he referenced, which is just so hilarious, right?

Which is like, you don't know how Trump hasn't lost a step. Just look at yesterday's cabinet meeting. Where he dozed off multiple times. And I was talking to Jonathan Lemire about this for the pod today. And it's like part of the reason why they're having so many of these cabinet meetings now is because it's like an easy way for Trump to be out there. Right. Like Trump is getting old and tired. Like he's not traveling the country.

like he was doing the first time. Like, if all I used to do is just take off his slippers and, you know, put on his orange face and like... What can him walk in, walking on the hall last week? Shuffle down. Yeah, shuffle down to the cabinet room and then listen to people telling him about Grady is for three hours. Like, that is what you do for an old guy that wants to be out there. He works harder than any of us, Tim. I saw him bench press a wolf.

He is the strongest, most perfect physical specimen. any of us have ever seen actually pete haggseth that would be funny somebody ought to put pete higseth on a spot and say uh mr secretary of war can you do more push-ups than donald trump and president of trump and watch pete like try to figure out wait a minute how do i that's a good question for our new d press corps anyway uh let's let's go to the next clip lord takes is sponsored by oar frames this holiday season i have a lot more gifts on my list than good ideas if you're looking for something with a real personal touch, I have it on good authority that ORA frames will crush it. The producer who wrote this ad attests that the ORA frames he gave his family were a hit last year. In fact, Sarah Longwell

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takes at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code bulwark takes. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out very fast. So order yours now to get in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. You've been talking about is that the regional presidents you think actually are not as independent unto themselves that you want. Well, no, no, I think when I was on Squawk Box last week. Becky said, well, Susan Collins at the Boston Fed says this. And, you know, I, that her people in her district are having an affordability problem. I should have said, well, she's in a red state, affordability is worse. I mean, in a blue state, affordability is

worse than a blue state. We can debate that, but keep going. There's no debate. The number, 50 basis points higher inflation, the 10 highest, the inflation rates, they are in blue cities. Just so you know, because I went to look at this. This is the Joint Economic Committee, since 2021. The highest inflation of the past four years has been in red states, especially Florida. I'm talking about current. Current. Current. Not over the past four years. Right. Today. Okay.

I would take four years would be a reasonable to trend line to look at. Today, today it is 50 basis points higher. So anyway, and look, that people are voting with their feet. I have the American people on my side. So that New York, Illinois. Yes, Scott. The American people are on your side. Before we get to the substance, because I want to hear you.

your take on the substance. This J.Ville, you follow this stuff a little closer with me. I want to be a figure skating judge for a second. The way he sits, like it's just, like,

sit up in your fucking chair if you're going to do an interview. You know, he's just like, oh, it's just, he's such a prissy, condescending prick.

He's so unappealing. Anyway, he's also wrong. And you would think that if you're going to be condescending, you should at least be articulate. Right. When you're talking down to your count. party. And his, yeah, I mean, his response, which is like, no, no, no, no. Well, I mean,

for the last 10 hours, the inflation rates have been up. Here's the problem. And this is why I get a little bit upset about this. There are positions in the federal government where you can have absolute hacks, total political hacks, who everybody knows lies all the time and nobody trusts them, and it's basically okay. Not like, the Commerce Department. Commerce, if the Secretary of the Interior is like that, so be it. There are supposed to be like four, probably four cabinet positions where the public needs to be able to trust the secretaries in case there's a crisis.

And of those, the most important is probably Treasury. because if you wind up in a financial crisis and things are going to hell like we had in 2008, if Hank Paulson had been this guy and he had come out and tried to reassure markets and said, okay, we understand that Bear Stearns collapsed and we allowed Bear Stearns to go down, but we are rescuing Lehman Brothers and we are laying down a marker that we will also rescue anybody else who needs it. and we're going to stop this contagion now. Markets need to be able to trust the things they say and to have the Treasury Secretary. Like, we can get a lot, everything is fine having this absolute moron as Secretary of the Treasury

so long as there's no crisis. But if you wind up in a crisis where, you know, A, the president, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Chairman of the Fed, what they say and they're standing within the financial community, is incredibly important because people need to be able to trust their representations. And Besson, nobody can trust a word he says. He's like the biggest, worst political. It's like he's some backbench Republican congressman from fucking Oklahoma or something. Yeah, or like he's working for some dumb think tank, right-wing think tank.

This job is to spin for the administration, right? And, yeah, no, if there's a crisis, you do think you'd want the Secretary of Treasury to be, like, reading the news. That's the other thing where, like, the joke, it doesn't really work. It's like, I don't know, I don't read the fake news. I'm like, I'm a Secretary of Treasury during the next financial crisis will only be getting his news from Matt Gates at O-A-N. You know, it's like, well, that's not really what we're the Fox business. Maybe I'll turn over to Fox business, see what they're saying. Yeah, man, also he's been trotting this little thing out.

for a little bit. This whole, like, the inflation is worse in red states. I'm going to trust Andrew Ross Horkin's data on this. He's a database journalist. But, like, even if you was right, even if you look at the 10-week inflation status and it's been really bad in blue states by 50 basis points. So, it's like, A, regular people don't know what a basis point is, and B, they have, like, real bills. Okay, so if their inflation, if inflation is going up in their state, you know, 0.5% more than in another state,

it is not a solve to their problem to do the most expensive thing that, like, a working class family can do, which is move. At least it's worse for somebody in Manhattan, right? Yeah, it's like, okay. If you're West Virginia and things are more expensive at the bigly-wiggly-wiggly, it doesn't, it shouldn't make you feel, although maybe it does make you feel better to have Scott Besson telling you that, well, don't worry, the lip tards are getting it worse. They're going to get a little worse. Yeah.

But the other thing is like, oh, the thing that you should do then to resolve this is you should move from Connecticut to whatever, South Carolina. That's like, there are no jobs. I'm like, that's going to cost a lot more, by the way, than like the extra two bucks I'm paying. So the whole argument is stupid. He's been working on it for a month. And these guys just, they're not, I don't, if the economy gets worse, I don't know that they know how to handle it.

I don't think there's any way that they are going to be able to manage, be able to successfully manage themselves through a recessionary type situation because of just the premise of how Donald Trump and Scott Besson act in such situations. Which brings me to my financial sum of all fears, which is that Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed, his term expires soon. Trump has said he already knows who he's going to appoint. Could be this guy. Could be this guy.

It could be Kevin Hassett. Idiot. I mean, I don't think we've ever had a nakedly political hack as Fed Chair. Like, that's not the job. And, man, like, again, just the damage that can be done by having some, if it's one of these guys as chairman of the Fed, who's just going to say, oh, well, Mr. Trump wants me to cut rates. I guess we'll cut rates. My God.

And, yeah, again, and for people who like that, you know, isn't exactly their cup of tea, just kind of following how the stuff works and the Fed shares role in the financial market. It's like, one of these memes was going around the past few days. If people suffer through social media like me, you might have seen it where it's like the 20 most powerful jobs in the world. And it's like, it's an engagement bait to get people to. you know, discuss what they think. Like, the Fed chair job on those lists was like four, six, seven.

Because they have actual meaningful responsibilities. And replacing Jerome Powell with somebody like this dude, I could have very real ramifications in a way that putting a hack and somebody some of the jobs don't. Yeah. I mean, it could contribute to really like unwinding the American. financial system as we have known it, and the way in which the government and central bank relate to one another and how all other financial markets treat the dollar and the American economy.

It's just, man, it's a good thing we have three more years of this. Tim, thanks for coming on to talk about our boy, Scott Besson. If you want more super uplifting Sunnyside takes like this, hit like, hit subscribe, follow the channel. It helps us out a lot more than you can imagine. imagine. Tim's good to see you. Everybody else. Good luck, America. Catch you next time.