The Chaser Report - Clear and Bessent Danger

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Charles has a theory about the US economy and how it connects to crime and cryptocurrency, in an episode guaranteed to fill every box on your Charles Bingo card. Plus, we finally settle the endless debate about Meghan Markle. ---Listen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And Charles, we've been inundated by messages yesterday following the episode in which you conducted your own experiment with The Weave, which is Donald Trump's patented rhetorical technique where he goes off on a tangent and then a tangent from a tangent and then a tangent from a tangent. And in his view, he brings it home. brings it home every time and is brilliant and that's why he's such a compelling speaker. He also thinks that you have to be very smart to do the weave. He reckoned in the last election, Kamala Harris wasn't intelligent enough to do the weave.

Others might say it's a sign of aging and of a feeble mind, at least a easily distracted mind. But Charles, I think today you're going to... I think I brought it home, though. I brought it home. I know you think you brought it home. Today, you've promised this a theory on Scott Bessent. Yes. And I know that the droves of people have come flooding back.

This will be the most downloaded episode of the year, Dom, this episode. I promise you. Yeah, this is, I mean, this is a really, you're getting to the heart of the issues here. But I think what the US Treasury is up to is actually quite an interesting question. So let's take some ads for our own Treasury purposes. And then we can try and make sense of this increasingly nonsensical world. Okay. So to just give some context, Scott Besant is the,

new treasury secretary, right? Oh, not new. I mean, he's been around for about 18 months now. How long's Trump been going? About 18 months, yeah. Yeah, there you go. And he actually comes from the financial markets. I think he had a job of a big bank.

So he's not, he's not like a mega, mega, mega, mega. He's not like, um. Yeah, he's sort of, he's supposed to be sensible mega. He's not like Pete, Pete Higgs at where he got just plucked from Fox News. Yeah, yeah. He sort of comes with some skills, right? He was. And you know what he was?

What? This is actually hilarious. He was a partner at the Soros Fund Management, like the most hated financier by everyone in the right of American politics. That is, it's bizarre. He's also the highest serving openly gay cabinet member ever. Right. Okay.

Well, there you go. Even higher than Pete Batigigig. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's, um, Treasury Secretary. Oh, because transport is not as. Oh, yeah, no, sorry, transport's nowhere near as good as, yeah, it's treasury. Anyway, so Scott Bessent has been in the news in the last week or so because he's doing this complicated bonds program where basically he swaps out long-term debt for short-term

debt, right? Right. So the long-term debt and interest rate that the US can get has just been going up and up and up all year. So basically, think of it as like a mortgage. Like America has now $4 trillion worth of debt. Wow. And normally what you do is you'd go, okay, let's let's buy, let's sell a whole lot of 30 year bonds. So let's get a whole lot of 30 year debts. Let's make our mortgage go for as long as possible and, you know, make the interest payments go for as long, you know, spread it out across 30 years, right? In the same way, you know, if you're buying a house,

because it's a big amount of money, have a long-term sort of thing. Yeah, 30 years is standard. But basically everyone in the world who has money to lend is looking at the American going, I don't think this is going to last 30 years. So the interest rate on lending America money for 30 years is just going up and up and up. It's like up to 6% of something like that. Crazy amount of money in interest payments, right?

Like we're talking, I think it's like $800 million, $800 billion a year in in interest on that sort of thing. But Sky has looked around and gone, actually, it'd be cheaper at the moment to just borrow short term. Like just borrow like for, you know, 90 days a year, you know, tiny, you know, and we'll just, it's like a credit card thing where you just go, oh, well, I'll just borrow this money short term and I'll still have to refinance in 90 days or 120 days or a year or two years or whatever. But it'll be much cheaper, like it'll reduce my interest rate.

So he's been doing all these funny financial transactions to actually use his time and effort and essentially the money that he's got to be refinancing on the entire national debt on these really short-term things. It's like taking your mortgage and going, oh, wait a minute, there's an introductory rate on a Citibank credit card that's actually lower than my mortgage. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to move my mortgage to a credit card with an introductory rate. And then when the introductory rate expires, it's all right. I'll just refinance on another introductory rate. That's literally what's going on at the moment. Isn't that what people have to do in America

at the moment because of the incredible challenges of cost living, by the way? Like, isn't that, doesn't that actually not a metaphor for a lot of people? A lot of people in America would relate to this because actually about half the population now live pay packet to pay packet. Like literally, I think they asked, would you be able to come up with, I think it was like $3 or $400 in an emergency? it was some astounding. It was like 31% of people said, no, I wouldn't be able to do that. So that's how tight everything is at the moment. Just wait until the Trump crypto coins come in. It'll be fine. Yep. So this is where the Trump crypto coins come in. Right. So one of the things that they did

really quite early on about 18 months ago, maybe 12 months ago, is they changed the rules at the Federal Reserve to go actually tether coin. So these are cryptocurrencies that They actually have had a fairly good run of it. Sam Bankman Fried famously ran a tether coin. And that went really well. But most of the tether coins backed 100% with US treasuries. And they've actually passed a law in the US saying, if you want to have a tether coin, and a tether coin is basically, it's like a Bitcoin, but it's actually something that you can use for money.

Because instead of being denominated in, you know, one Bitcoin is. is worth, you know, made up with whatever, you know, $79,000 today and $61,000 tomorrow, right? What a tether coin is is it goes, well, we'll deal with the maths in the background, but this coin will always be worth exactly one US dollar, right? Which is very useful. If you're involved in organised crime, if you want to pay bankroll assassins, I mean, you can really get burned if you do it in Bitcoin and you don't want to, you don't want to be put out.

But one group you don't want to short change is an assassin. Yeah, so you want to pay, you say, oh, I'll pay you two Bitcoin to kill Dom, right? Yeah. And then the price of Bitcoin goes from $61,000, US dollars, suddenly overnight it goes to $79. Suddenly you've got to pay. Not such a good deal. And it's not really a good deal. I think I'd prefer Dom to be alive.

Oh, that's so sweet. It has all the advantage, all the, all the nefariousness. the crypto without the instability is what it is. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So what they did is they went, okay, from now on, tether coins have to be backed by one to one by an actual US dollar. You've got to buy US treasuries, right?

Which in some ways is creating demand for the debt. Like selling US treasuries is you've got to buy our debt, basically. Right. So that then becomes something where, so instead, so what that means is, that now suddenly the crypto market is almost like a retail trading arm for US government debt. Really? Because every time somebody buys a tether coin that's linked to the US dollar, they have to, that tether coin then has to buy $1 from the US of US debt, right?

So think about that. So it's sort of small amounts of money at the moment. Like, I think the total market of better teeth coin would be, I don't know, probably 30 or 40 billion US dollars, right? Like, it's not a huge thing, right? But, I mean, it's quite big, but like, I wouldn't mind 30 or 40 billion dollars. But I'm just saying in the context of a $4 trillion debt, that's nothing, right. But as America looks around and goes, fuck, how are we going to refinance everything? I, this is my theory.

More and more and more, they're going to be looking towards the retail market. So normally, if America needs to borrow a trillion dollars, they go to China or Japan, or even, you know, other credited nations, Saudi Arabia maybe, and say, can you lend us this money, right? Can you buy our treasuries and lend us that money, right? And so China and Japan have been unwinding that trade. They've been basically looking at the US and going, oh, fuck, this is, US is not going well, let's just sell, sell all that debt, like get rid of that debt, right?

like unwind that mortgage that we've got, we've let. And so that's why the interest rates are going. But that also means that America, as I discussed, has to refinance on these short-term sort of things. Increasingly, I think it's going to be done through crypto. It's going to be done through Tither. Really? And what is going to happen is increasingly organized crime is going to be the thing that underwrites

the stability of the American financial system. because suddenly cryptocurrency is is completely assured as a sort of US-nominated thing. Like, it's something that you sort of want to get into if you're organized crime. But it means that the US suddenly becomes in hock over time, it will become more and more in hoc to organise crime. What a fantastic way to launder money, though. Which means that if suddenly the tether coin market becomes $500 billion or a trillion dollars, right, because that's where the US has to place its treasuries,

they're going to suddenly not have an interest in stopping the spread of organised crime. In fact, they're going to have an interest in more and more people using untraceable cryptocurrency, tether coins to do business, so that those tether coins basically inhabiting the US debt. That is my theory. I think that what you're going to see is you're going to see the rise of the first ever sort of literally sovereign currency that's underwritten by organised crime. And, I mean, that sounds like a recipe for stability.

Because we know. If you look at Las Vegas, isn't that the only town in America that's actually well run? Yeah. Look, I think that that might be right. Like, there's a sort of, there are a few advantages to it. They keep the streets clean. I mean, there will always be organized crime. It's just that it'll be the first time in a long time.

Like, I don't think actually, I think it's untrue to say ever. But in, you know, we're moving away from a rules-based order where laws are the thing. Like, organised crime exists outside of laws. We now have the largest superpower now having an interest in having literally a non-rules-based order. Well, you say that, but there are rules. Oh, right, yeah, yeah. Don't squeal. Don't squeals are rule.

Snitches get stitches. That's another rule. Pay back your debt. or else. Yes. Yes. And you can't, you can't mug someone on the streets of Vegas. No.

Uh-uh. You'll be, you'll just, you'll be disappeared. And I mean, look, is this so new? No, because the royal, I was seeing about it, the royal family, you're right, like the British royal family. I don't know whether you've seen that brilliant Netflix series, The Gentleman, have you seen that? No, no.

Is that the one that Megan Markle was going to star in when she moved back to the UK? And then when people found out this was going to happen, they went, no, she's not. We can't have a black actress starring in our... No, that's a bit unfair. I've watched suits. I think there are plenty of other reasons not to hire Megan Markle. Oh, no. No, I think she's a good actress.

I like Megan Markle in suits. Do you? Yes, she was great. Really? Yeah, there's chemistry between her and the guy lied all the time. Oh my goodness. Okay. All right.

Well, look, reasonable minds, may differ. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. Point is, the gentleman, you know, Guy Ritchie produces that show, right? And his whole thesis is that the British Royal Family have always been basically organized criminals. They've been running this racket. And one of the smart things that they did as they accumulated all this wealth was to

then dress up, dress it all up in castles and art and art. stuff like that. But actually, at the very basis, you know, they are living off the proceeds of crime and that they, you know, have an interest in continuing to sort of, you know, basically be their organised crime families. Like the royal families, the nobles who own England are basically a whole lot of organised crime families with rich histories and, you know, beautiful dresses. And, And, like, yeah, so I suppose that is that what we're seeing the rise of in America, like that essentially we're going to be, we're seeing the rise of a new monarchical nobility where, you know, they run things as they, I suppose that is already the case, isn't it?

They make up the rules as they go along and then enforce everything with extreme violence. It's got to be remembered that Roy Cohn, who's Donald Trump's great mentor, remember the guy, there was a movie about this. Yes, yes, yes. Where Jeremy Strong, the guy from Succession played Roy Cohn. I really wanted to. He was called The Apprentice, wasn't it? Yeah.

And Sebastian Stan played Trump. I never saw it, but I want to watch it. No. Roy Cone was a mob lawyer. Like, that's not a controversial thing to say. He apparently allowed mafia bosses to hold meetings inside his apartment. So he then, you know, he worked for the construction unions, and then he worked for developers like Donald Trump.

And so there've always been questions about the connections there between the construction firms and the builders and how, that all went down. So, you know, is there anything particularly new under the sun? Maybe we've been thinking about this whole CFMEU corruption thing all wrong down in Victoria. But maybe the point is John Setka should become the next president of Australia. Like, maybe, maybe what we need is just a little bit more, you know, like we're too constrained

by wanting to follow the rules. When in actual fact, we've, we've already got our nascent next ruling class. Roy Cohn had three rules. And this is from the New Yorker. There are three rules. And you can see clearly Donald Trump hooked this to heart, right? And I think you and I should. Yes.

Attack, attack, attack. Always go straight on all the offensive. Don't just defend yourself. Except, Megan Markle that don't attack it. Oh, really? Of all the things, of all the hills to die on, defending Megan Markle is a very strange one. Defending Mega Michael's acting ability.

Acting ability. And also kind of like the Homeware's line. That's a conversation for another time. Anyway, admit nothing, deny everything. You never concede ground. You never validate an opponent's premise. Well, no, I wouldn't concede that as a rule. Really?

You wouldn't? No. No, no matter what happens, claim victory and never admit defeat. Always project strength. You always won. No matter how bad things look. So no matter what the polls say, no matter what the election authorities say about the, I don't know, 2020 election, it's not, you can't even conceive of the idea that you lost.

And that's always been a problem I've had. Yes. I'll look at the scoreboard, which is, you don't do that. You will. It's a question of willpower. Ah. See, this is where Albo's gone all wrong, isn't he? Because they conceded defeat in the Secret Harbor by election on the weekend.

He hasn't gone wrong. It's a victory that hasn't been adequately justified yet, Charles. That's right. The Secret Harbor election victory on the weekend. Some people are saying that actually Labor is well ahead of, everyone else in the polling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The best polls say that Anthony Amlesi's going to win.

Yeah. All right. So, well, there you go. I mean, I just, if I think there been some warning, Charles, that crypto was somehow dodgy and linked with crime, and it's just, that's really shaken the foundations of my beliefs here. But what I'm saying is it's now, you know, a fundamental part of the architecture of how America continues to exist.

Like, essentially, because the whole point is, If you lend money to people, you end up becoming in debt to them. You actually get controlled by them. Yeah. You have to serve their interests. And I mean, this is why the banks are such wonderful people. You won't hear me saying anything else. I owe a bank a lot of money.

But that's why it's just a bit worrying, you know. Well, it's worrying or it's genius. Right. I care. The line between a bit concerning and a brilliant masterstroke of a strategy. No. As Roy Cohn would tell you, is a question of perception and self-belief.

And in actual fact, I would say, like, you know, like if you're looking around for suckers to do a rug pull on, you know, retail investors is, you know, people who, you know, go into their garage and day trade cryptocurrency. Yeah. So that's a pretty good mark. And you've seen it with SpaceX.

Like there's, they've already started converting, like basically creating wealth by ripping off retail investors and so the inside track, you know, that's what all these IPOs for tech companies are at the moment. They're sort of allowing Silicon Valley to get away with murder and then the retail investors come in and pay the high price for it. So in some ways, it's about allowing China and Japan to, you know, be able to survive another day. And instead it'll be, I don't know, some guy in a garage in, you know, San Antonio who's just traded some crypto who'll end up being the bagholder. Well, I mean, I do think Donald Trump has something to all those poor saps

who bought the Trump coin and lost an absolute Mozart. I don't really have the story. It's the Trump coin, but done with the entire US economy. That's what it is. It's brilliant. Pump and dump. In unrelated news, Chase the coin is coming out very soon. It's very reliable. It's not technically a stable coin, But experts are saying it's basically tethered. It's a tether coin. Because it's so stable. Yeah. To your mortgage.

You know, the official Trump coin at the moment, it's worth $2.73. Sorry, $2.37 U.S. at the moment. Do you know what it was when it launched? Oh, it was like $100? $75. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I hope Donald Trump got his money back in time. Okay. You know, he's put his heads going on the coins. No, it's not. It is. No, it's not. That's rubbish. Go to the US Mint.

No, it's not. No, no, you, no, that's rubbish. All right. Coming soon. Coming in fall. All right. I suppose what you're saying, even that's not a stable.

All right, we're part of the Icona class network. And look, if you're likely, there'll be more. A famously unstable coin. There'll be more of high finance in tomorrow's episode. All right. I feel like we shouldn't say that. Catch you next time.

See ya.