Bulwark Takes - Scott Bessent Is LOSING IT!

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on Charlie Kirk’s show and said the quiet part way too loud: calling Kirk’s assassination a “domestic 9/11” and promising to “compile lists” of left-wing groups to investigate. Tim Miller breaks down how this rhetoric crosses every line and why this “war on terror 2.0” mentality is straight-up un-American.

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the bulwark here. Our Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessett, has gone insane. I mean, the dude is high on his power, high on his own supply. I don't know what's happening, what is going on in the Barbie House, City House, in South Carolina, but Scott Bessent has lost his damn mind. And I want to bring a couple of clips to you that I just, I think, have not gotten the attention that they deserve. This first one here, this happened yesterday on the Charlie Kirk Show, have not seen a ton of conversation about it. But it is deeply alarming what the Treasury Secretary is planning as far as looking at financing of left-wing groups here in this country. It is chilling, actually, to hear from him. So I want to play for you a couple of bits from Scott Bessent on the Charlie Kirk Show on Tuesday.

I want to play a clip here that's really important because you're working on a very important piece of this. I wish we had more time for this, so let's just get right into it, 136. Let me tell you something. I'm not sure with anybody, but the last message that Charlie Kirk gave to me before he joined his creator in heaven was he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence. That was the last message that he sent me before that assassin stole him from all of us. So that is a powerful clip.

Stephen Miller said something similar when J.D. hosted the show on the Monday after he was assassinated. And Treasury, I come to find out, coming to D.C., that Treasury has taken an active role in an aspect of this dismantling of the financial networks that are supporting some of these radical, left, violent groups. Share with what you can. I know it's an ongoing process. So it's an ongoing process, and I will tell you that after 9-11, Treasury became the driving force behind tracking down the networks of terrorist organizations, how they were financed, how could this have happened on U.S. soil with these international terrorist organizations, where did the money come from, who were the ultimate funders, and that was on the international side. And Andrew, I will tell you that Charlie's death is like a domestic 9-11. A what? Charlie Kirk's death, his assassination, it was like a domestic 9-11?

That is madness. Okay? I mean, that is insanity. We're going to look into the financing. I've been banging the drum on this for a while. J.D. Vance, the vice president was talking about this. When he was on Charlie Kirk's show about looking into who was financing this, young man that shot and killed Charlie Kirk and I have to say look it is horrible what happened

to Charlie Kirk I mean you all have seen me I've been very emotional talking about it it is chilling what happened to Charlie Kirk this young man that was radicalized that that seems it seems that he was maybe white nighting for his trans roommate's nice girlfriend it's sick what he did. It's sick. And he should be held accountable for his crimes. And he's going to. He's in custody. It's nothing like 9-11. And in 9-11, the people that flew the planes into the buildings killing 3,000 Americans, they were part of an international plot. They were part of a international organization that was coming after America. They were funded by a broader organization. Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda. There was

terrorist networking and financing that led to that attack that were planning their individuals and groups that were planning subsequent attacks and they were coming after America. We were at war. Some of the things we did in the fallout from that were wrong. We're mistakes, obviously.

The Iraq War, some of the powers of the federal government took to spy on people what went overboard, particularly, you know, domestically, particularly targeting Muslims, but the idea that we'll go and look back to 9-11 and say, we need to do that. We need to take that security state spy apparatus and use it to target and root out foes. There's no comparison.

This guy is not part of some left-wing cabal. He's not part of some domestic effort to undermine the country or, or to undermine our government or to go after our way of life or like none of that this is a guy that went crazy had access to a firearm had a trans roommate was radicalized committed a heinous murder that he should be punished for to the fullest extent of the law it is not a domestic 9-11 okay and the fact that Scott Besson is supposed to be the calm headed one. And this isn't Stephen Miller. This isn't J.D. Vance faking it. This is the guy that's supposed to be bringing calm to the administration saying that he's going

to use the powers of the Treasury Department to go after the bank records of people on the left under the auspices of like some kind of war on domestic terror, like a war on terror style effort to go after Americans who are political opponents of theirs. And the pretext for that is this assassination with this guy who there's no evidence was involved in any of those groups. It's lunacy. It is un-American. We should all be worried about this.

Anyone, any American who believes in freedom and rights should be worried that the federal government will be talking like this. There's a lot of folks, there's kind of a horseshoe. There's a lot of folks on the libertarian right and left who were outraged about the excesses of the security state following 9-11. And they had some good points, I would say, in retrospect. And a lot of them are in the MAGA coalition. So MAGA folks, I just encourage everybody to listen to this and say, no, like, this is not what you want. You do not want federal government declaring emergency powers to go after your bank account.

Okay, because they're imagining some conspiracy that is at the scale of Al-Qaeda to go after people. That doesn't exist. I just want to keep watching this video a little bit more. You see these groups where all the signs match, they have hundreds of the same umbrellas that they're using. You know, after they cause the mayhem, they have the same lasers that they're using to blind our police force. How are they constructed because this takes a lot of money, it takes a lot of organization, and we are going to do that. We have started to compile a list, put together networks, and there's a long record here. And we don't know how much of the supports coming in from overseas. We don't know how much being supported by U.S. nonprofits, C3s that give money to C4th.

But this is mission critical for us now, just as after 9-11 and Osama bin Laden, the ultimate culprit was captured. We are operationalizing this here at Treasury, and we are going to track down who is responsible for this. So Charlie's death has set this off, and we are determined not only to honor him, but to keep our country safe, and to ensure freedom of speech on both sides. We've started to compile lists. That's what the Treasury Secretary said. He says that Charlie Kirk's death is like 9-11, and we're looking at groups that oppose the government

and groups that were critical of right-wing organizations, and they've started to compile lists of those groups. They started to put together networks. There's a long record here, and they're going to come after them. They're going to use the power of the federal government to go after them. Those are the antics of a madman. like that is not somebody who is in touch with reality at all. That is somebody that has gotten way out over their skis, power has gotten to their head,

and somebody needs to throw a cold glass of water on Scott, the scent, not literally. But he's got to cool off, okay? Dude's got to cool off and take a walk around the block and realize that there is not some kibaba. of people in this country coming for him and that the federal government should go after criminals. They have evidence that people have committed crimes. They should go after them. Obviously, if there is funding of violent organizations out there, Treasury Department surely should

look into those funding networks. Another thing maybe for the Treasury Department to look into is the corruption, the amount of money that's being given to the president. family via cryptocurrency, you might want to look into those networks as well if we're talking about funding networks. But to like say that you're planning a war on terror-style 9-11 campaign targeting left-wing groups in this country because of the Charlie Kirk assassination, when there's no evidence that that man, that that kid had any fucking relationship with any of those groups. Very bad, very ominous, very scary. I'm going to put one other clip for him because

it's not a one-off. Here he is talking on the panel of CNBC. We're on day 15, and it doesn't look like there's any sign of a deal? Well, there's a thought out there that they're at least waiting to this crazy no-king's rally this weekend, which is going to be the farthest left, the hardest core,

the most unhinged in the Democratic Party, which is, you know, a big title. And, you know, no kings equal no paychecks. We are paying our military today. The Pentagon went into surplus funds.

and will be able to make the pay paychecks. And, you know, I... Again, the most unhinged in the Democratic Party, no kings equals no paychecks. Like, what is he talking about? Again, he's talking about these protesters that are like, Normie, lefty, we've talked about this on here, a lot of, you know, kind of suburban grandmas.

God love them out there, marching. Like, this is not the furthest left, the hardest core, the most unhinged. These are not violent. They're very nonviolent rallies. So when I went to a New Orleans was super peaceful and chill and very NPR tote baggish. Like this is this person is out of touch. He lived in a Barbie house in South Carolina.

He became Treasury Secretary. He's now in a bubble. He's got a lot of power. And people around him, I think, are telling him that there are all these people around out to get him. They're all these extremists. And it's just not true. Okay. He should do his job, which is to keep the president from crashing the economy.

That's his main job, and he should stick to that, and he should leave the demagoguery to the experts in the administration, Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance, because this stuff is chilling, and the Treasury Secretary should be above it. Okay, one other thing that he's been talking about unrelated to all this, but just shows kind of like his derangement and how high he is on his own supply. I do you think so can get away with us. Here he is, well, actually, I don't know if we have video of this. So I'm just going to read to you a quote from Scott Bessent about. to Argentina, the Argentina bailout. Speaking of reporters, Besson said,

the administration is networking on an additional $20 billion support line for Argentina. That would be in addition to the currency swap that they're already doing. It's going to be a private partnership, I guess. Some banks are interested, many sovereign funds, he says.

And then he goes, that would be a total of $40 billion for Argentina. What? Who wants this? We're doing, there's a $20 billion bailout for Argentina and then the Treasury Secretary is going to, you know, in some combination of private public funds, bring an additional $20 billion to Argentina. When Besson, we know as friends who've come to him, who have business associations and relationships there, I mean, the corruption here is insane. It is not America first. It goes against what MAGA wants.

And maybe, I guess maybe there is some connection between these first two videos. Maybe Besson thinks he can do these deals for his buddies and do these horror, some, um, a horrible, horrible for America, nonsensical bailout of Argentina to, you know, help out some of his friends, scratch the back of some of his finance investor buddies. And maybe Maga won't care as long as he does, you know, bids to combat on podcasts. I don't, I don't know. Or as long as he promises to go after the libs they don't like on podcast is maybe a better way of putting it.

But dude is off his rocker. And it's something that I think we need to monitor. because at some level, and I've been hard on old Scott, you know, you've got to be tougher on the gays. We expect more for them. But, you know, on some of the tariff stuff, he's obviously been the more sane partner to Lutnik. And it's like if this, if the reasonable, relatively,

relatively people in the administration are now fully on board for the corruption agenda, fully on board for this demagogic effort to target political foes using every lever that the government has its disposal. we're in for a rocky ride so scott bescent take a breath drink some tea and let's try to dial it back because you're you're losing your mind here this stuff is this stuff is cuckoo for cocoa puffs everybody subscribe to the feed we'll be back here for more as always we'll be seeing you all soon