Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Treasury Chief Blows It Live on TV

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

Tim Miller explains how Trump’s team admits their own policies are hurting American businesses and consumers while pretending it is all good news.

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apply. Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. My favorite affected Treasury Secretary, Ponzi Scott Besant, was doing the rounds this morning. He was on with Jake Tapper, as well as Christian Welker on Meet the Press. And I wanted to highlight a few of his comments, starting with a response to the Walmart CEO who said on an earnings call this week that they were going to have to eat some of the tariffs. Not really a great sign there when you have this massive company

that touches so many parts of the economy expressing those concerns on their earnings call. So obviously, Besant was asked about that on both shows. Let's go to his chat with Christian Welker first. I was on the phone with Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart yesterday. And Walmart is, in fact, going to, as you describe it, eat some of the tariffs that just as they did in 18, 19 and 20. The other thing, though, that we are seeing that Doug passed along to me that with their consumer, the single most important thing is the gasoline price and gasoline prices have collapsed under President Trump.

So we are seeing that. The other thing that will happen, that is a direct tax cut for consumers. Then the transportation costs are also a big input. So let's see what happens. What you were describing was Walmart's earnings call. The other thing that companies have to do, they have to give the worst case scenario so that they're not sued. So, you know, I think overall we are seeing a decline in services, inflation, and we saw inflation come down for the first time in four years. So interesting there. Besson, who, you know, had said let them eat big screen tvs a little while ago you know about how americans didn't really need cheap goods um uh a little bit with uh let them eat tariffs uh let walmart eat some of the tariffs besan said walmart will eat some of the tariffs uh this is

interesting um because again trump has been pushing the fact that the tariffs were going to be a tax on these other countries and we're going to get rich off of them. Now it's American companies that have to eat it. I, you know, I do this over and over again, but it is just unimaginable. Like the outrage, the outcry in the business community on CNBC and the wall street journal, if Barack Obama, you know, had just been like, yeah, Walmart's just gotta, you know, eat it when I put a stupid policy on them that is going to hurt earnings, hurt their profitability. There would be this outcry about how this is an attack on the job creators in business. Well, Trump is doing an attack on the job creators, and his Treasury Secretary is out there just saying, yeah, they're just going to have to eat it. Another interesting side note of this, well, two I have, when he talks about how the good news is that the energy prices are collapsing. It's actually not a great economic

sign that energy prices are collapsing. I know everybody wants low gas prices and low prices at the pump, but the prices aren't collapsing because of good news they're collapsing because there's concerns about recession um so i just think it's funny it's a funny spin a funny talking point energy prices are collapsing we're doing so well um and also just uh you'll get to see in the tapper interview i don't know which one was taped first he seemed a little sharper in the tapper interview uh because in this one uh he he's like choking over the answer, trying to kind of spit out how to defend this. It wasn't really, I don't know, it didn't fill me with confidence, let's just say. Let's look to his answer on Tapper.

Jake, in essence, what you're saying is you're saying taxes are inflationary. So let's pass the Trump tax cuts and that'll be disinflationary, if we continue that line of thinking. I don't know that you can put me on as endorsing anything, but go ahead. Well, let's just keep everything consistent. I did speak to Doug McMillan, who I have a very good relationship with, yesterday, just to understand what he had to say. And, you know, understand that came from an earnings call. On an earnings call, because of SEC requirements, they have to give the most draconian case. So Walmart will be absorbing some of the

tariffs. Some may get passed on to consumers. But the other thing that's happening is that inflation is down. We had the first drop in inflation in four years under President Trump. The other thing that Doug mentioned to me is for his consumers, for his buyers, the most important thing are gasoline prices. And this administration has gotten gasoline prices down. Service prices are down. So overall, I would expect inflation to remain in line. But I don't blame consumers for being skittish after what happened to them four years under Biden.

We had the worst inflation in 40 years. He goes even further. I said his answer was better here. I just his performance was a little better. He didn't seem quite as nervous and jittery. But the actual line here, some will get passed on to consumers. So once again, this is them admitting that the whole conceit of these tariffs, that there were attacks on foreign countries, we're going to get rich on them, was wrong. And the consumers are going to bear the brunt of this.

So you've got in two interviews, Scott Besson saying, yes, Walmart will eat it. So we'll lose. So big American companies are going to lose profitability because of this and consumers are going to get hit. So it's a double whammy. And he admitted it over the course of two interviews. I also want to talk about speaking of bad things going on with the economy. Moody's had downgraded America. I think that happened after the last pod on Friday. So I haven't had a chance to cover it yet. Moody's downgraded our credit rating off of AAA, the last rating agency to do so. And here was Besson's response to that on Meet the Press.

And if we go back to your initial question on the Moody's downgrade, who cares? Qatar doesn't, Saudi doesn't, UAE doesn't. They're all pushing money in. They want to they've made 10 year the they've made 10 year investment plans. So this administration, we're doing peace deals, trade deals and tax deals. Who cares? Who cares? I people should care. I mean, again, there was once a time where there was concern about fiscal discipline, not just tax cuts in the Republican Party. And the fact that we have this bill happening on the Hill right now, which is going to just balloon the debt even more, where there is no even attempt to try to bring some fiscal responsibility in. you start to look at how much we are paying per month in interest on our debt. The percentage of the GDP that's going to interest on the debt is higher than we'd like it to be. And it's not catastrophic, but it's higher than you'd like it to be.

And now we're just going to press the gas on that in this new bill to pay for massive tax cuts for people at the top end of the scale? It is just a totally nonsensical plan from a fiscal responsibility standpoint. And, you know, in the context of these guys acting like Doge was all about dealing with the deficit, but tariffs were going to deal with the deficit, like the opposite has happened. They're putting forth a plan that is going to balloon the deficit more than any other of the recent presidents have, who haven't exactly been very fiscally responsible, going back through Biden, Trump before that, then Obama, then W, and all of them increased the debt. And what his plans are for here is larger than all of them. So it's not a surprise that the ratings agencies are going to downgrade us but but you know from best in standpoint who cares because the qatari's like us you know we can do bribes

with regional like mid mid to small mid regional sand sand dictatorships uh you know these the theocracies the quasi the theocratic fascists in the middle east will do deals with us still so who cares what the what the ratings agencies say um lastly speaking of those uh our new besties uh in the middle east uh he was asked of course about the plane and i liked this one i i i say that the gifts are to the American people, there's trillions of dollars of investments that are going to create jobs in the US. Whether it's the UAE building this gigantic aluminum plant in Oklahoma, whether it's these data centers that Qatar is going to do is $600 billion on its way to a trillion from Saudi.

It all accrues to the American people. It's a gift to the American people. In the Tapper interview, we don't need to play that one, but he does the Statue of Liberty comparison, which is like, did the Statue of Liberty go to the presidential library of James Garfield? I don't think so. Was that really akin to a fancy plane for Donald Trump? No, and everybody knows that. But I love this one, which is that it's a gift to the American people. I guess what he's trying to say is that the gift is all of the wealth that we're going to get from

Qatar, though I don't really know thanks as far as I'm concerned. It's not a gift i'm interested in but um there's just this whole notion that that this was some that the the dear leader just with his grace and generosity bestowed this on on the american people is so happy to share this gift bullshit do i get to ride on the plane you know does uh do i do my boys down on the West bank over here, they get to ride on the plane. My, my kids, folks I grew up with in Littleton,

Colorado, regular people with regular jobs. Any of them get to ride on the plane. Now, this is not a gift to the American people. This is a gift to Trump because Trump wants a fancy plane. Cause he's embarrassed that air force one is too old and he likes to have gaudy opulent shit.

So anyway, thanks, but no thanks on the gift to the American people. There's Scott Besson again, just kind of stammering and really struggling. And you can see the worst part about it is he's so haughty. You can see how proud of himself he is. He thinks that he's doing something well here. You're not fooling anybody, Scott. You're not fooling anybody. Everybody sees through it.

It was yet another shaky performance from somebody that thinks he's doing a lot better job than he is. So anyway, we'll be back here for more. I'll be back with Bill Kristol tomorrow. He had a very important discussion with Tom Malinowski, former congressman from New Jersey, today. Go and check that out if you've missed it. And then I'll be back with Bill as usual on Monday.

We'll be seeing you all then. Go Nuggets. My old school Mount Mutombo jersey. Now here, let me just show it to you. Everybody's going to see it. There we go. Go Nuggets. We'll see you all soon.

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