The Journal. - Tension and Tirades Inside the U.S. Treasury

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

President Donald Trump has put a lot on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s plate, from handling trade talks with China to overseeing sanctions on Iran. Meanwhile, tensions inside the Treasury are high. After interviews with former and current officials in the Trump administration, WSJ’s Brian Schwartz reports on how Bessent's behavior and leadership approach is impacting the Treasury. Kate Linebaugh hosts.   Further Listening: -How the Bond Market Will Affect Your Wallet - Let’s Talk Bonds. Treasury Bonds. Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scott Besson, the Secretary of the Treasury, plays a key role in managing the economy. But he's doing a lot more than that. He's been given a portfolio that no other modern-day Treasury has ever had. That's our colleague Brian Schwartz. He is leading trade negotiations with China. It's unfortunate that the Chinese actually don't want to come and negotiate because they... He has become the point person. on handling the economic policy side of the Iran War.

We are going to economically ex-fixiate this regime. And as president- He is a member of the Artificial Intelligence Task Force. He has also, of course, tried to deal with the bond market that's been in flux. And on top of that, the price and stability is that you're seeing across the country. So that's a massive remit for a Treasury Secretary. And what is the actual job? of the Treasury Secretary.

Well, traditionally, the role is meant to be the tip of the spear for any administration on economic policy. That's the policy side. The political side, of course, is that he, whoever the Treasury Secretary is, usually becomes a face of the results of those economic policies heading into any election. When it comes to the economy, it's a complicated moment for the Trump administration. Many voters have indicated that they're unhappy, and the midterms are in a couple weeks. Meanwhile, inside Scott Besson's treasury, tensions have been rising. The Wall Street Journal interviewed more than 30 former and current officials in the department and in the wider administration, as well as close associates from Wall Street,

for an article published earlier this month. And it seems like what tracks from our reporting is that if the secretary is under pressure from the White House or the President to do something, there is a very good chance that if it's not being done in the way the White House or the President told him to, he is going to take you on and lash out at you. A Treasury spokesman said Besant, quote, approaches the job with a deep sense of responsibility and urgency.

He also said Besant, quote, has high expectations of the United States Treasury's performance. Why doesn't it matter what kind of, boss, Besson is inside the Treasury? Because it gives a glimpse into how he's being as this key ally of the president behind the scenes. And this is a key government official, leading government official who's the voice and an architect of Trump's economic policies.

And the way he goes about doing that is important. But the bottom line is why it's of interest is because it gives a glimpse into an agency that is so powerful and how it. what's wrong. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Monday, October 19th. Coming up on the show, the tension and turnover at Scott Besson's Treasury.

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Shop online and get the same low, no frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50. a month. Learn more at no-frails.ca. When Trump won re-election, Bessent was a top pick to be his Treasury Secretary. Bessent came from Wall Street, where he'd worked with George Soros, and ran his own firm. In the job, Bessent would oversee big areas of economic policy, things like taxes, the national debt, and issuing treasuries. And one of the things the president is highly attuned to is markets. Is Besson essentially the voice of the markets for the president? Yeah, I think the president certainly believes that. And I think that Wall Street believes that.

I think that Wall Street looked and in many cases, continues to be fair to the protector, as kind of the voice of handling the markets, right? The thinking heading into the second term was the Treasury Secretary was going to be this kind of adult in the room for the president. Now, the secretary has made very clear that he is not there to manage the president. He is there to lay out his viewpoints on things. And if the president wants to roll with those concepts, then fine. If not, then they move, they try different ideas some other time. Trump appears to trust Besson. They talk on the phone almost every day, according to Brian's reporting.

And Trump keeps giving Besson more responsibilities. The president made a decision that the president made a decision that the Treasury Secretary was going to be the key point on the negotiations between the United States and China when it comes to trade. Not the U.S. Trade Representative. No, it was going to be the Treasury Secretary, even today. The key point of contact on trade on the U.S. side between the United States and China is the Treasury Secretary. That's significant. Which would lead someone to believe that Trump really likes this guy and trust him.

Yes. Yes, he does. He is gay, the ultimate trust of the president. No doubt. At the White House, Besson is known for taking strong positions against other Trump allies and appointees. One incident happened in April 2025. Bessent got into a shouting match in the West Wing with Elon Musk, who was then heading Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk, then an advisor to the president, working within the White House at times, tried to make changes to the Internal Revenue Service. Besson and Musk wound up in a face-to-face confrontation that got so bad the two men had to be separated. About five months later, Besson had another confrontation. This time it was with the administration's top housing official, Bill Pulte.

over allegations that Pulte was undermining him with Trump. And he got, the Treasury Secretary got into Pulte's face at a private party in Washington, vocally to the point where other people at the party heard of this taking place. Bessent later addressed his argument with Pulte on CNBC. Treasury secretaries dating back to Alexander Hamilton have a history of doing. And I think with the president's team, the, I, I, It turned out a little better for Treasury side this time. Besson's defenders, in and out of the administration,

acknowledge he can be combative. But they argue his approach is an asset. So the Church Secretary's allies make it very clear that he's very demanding. They admit, Steve Bannon from White House Chiefs out loud on the record with us, said that Besson has a temper. He said he has a tripwire. but that that is by in way design, that he's taken this rough and tumble mentality

from his Wall Street days, brought it to the Treasury Secretary and is made clear that if people are not following what the president wants, you can go. I just want to, like, quote Steve Bannon here from your article. He says, we've got a purpose and a mission here and we're mission-oriented.

I'm not interested in. your feelings. If your feelings are hurt, I'm sorry, get the F out of here. Yes, correct. You did say that. Yes. In that comment, Bannon was describing Besson's attitude toward Treasury staff. How does Trump react to Besson's approach? Trump had clearly no issue with it. I mean, the president really liked how the secretary is kind of pretty tough on people, reactionary to a degree where he's defending his own turf. And the president loves that type of behavior. He's always been into kind of seeing these fights play out.

And I think for the secretary, it definitely those battles did not hurt him at all. In fact, it seems to have raised his standing with the president. In April, during an event in Nevada, Trump joked about the secretary, who was sitting next to him. Trump said he'd turned Besson into a, quote, big star. He walks down the street and the people are screaming, Scott, Scott, can we have your autograph? I mean, what I did, I created a monster. He's a monster now that's terrible, but he's doing a great job. Besant has become bolder, making unilateral decisions.

And inside the department he's running, his temper has flared. That's next. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low, no frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2. and $0.50 a month. Learn more at no-frails.ca. This episode is brought to you by Welch's fruit snacks. Back-to-school season can be tough on parents,

but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stog up on Welch's fruit snacks, made with real, whole fruit for a mouth-watering experience the whole family can enjoy. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks. Based on your reporting, what have people said about what it's like to work with Besson? It can be very difficult.

He runs an extremely tight ship. People are often walking around the agency, trying to determine how to approach him on things, in order to avoid him getting frustrated and what they view as angry at them, and to avoid some sort of lashing out from him to them. to them. That's become the culture under this Treasury Secretary. Kind of walking on eggshells. Kind of walking on eggshells. You're preparing for giving him news, whether it's internal or public news, that he is not going to like, and he had yelling and getting very frustrated and taking on people in such a way that they define it as being angry at them.

According to Brian's reporting, Besson has shouted at staff for not moving fast enough to implement his ideas or to combat negative media coverage. In one moment last year, Bessent got so angry about the way his daily briefing book was organized that he picked up the binder full of papers and threw it at the wall, according to people familiar with the matter. Bessent denied the account. Meanwhile, there have been a number of high-level departures from the Treasury. One of those was John Hurley, the agency's Undersecretary for Terrorism.

and financial intelligence. One of his jobs was to look into financial fraud. At the start of this year, the administration was looking to investigate and did investigate allegations of fraud within the Somali community in Minnesota. Homeland Security is conducting what it calls a massive investigation

into alleged fraud in Minnesota's Somali community. Agents are zeroing in on daycare centers and health clinics after a viral video touched off a firestorm. The president says he doesn't want any Somalis living in the U.S. After a few dozen were implicated in a COVID relief fraud case. The president made clear that he wanted the Treasury Department through the Treasury Secretary to take a lead role in that investigation.

So that would land on John Hurley's desk. So in one meeting, John Hurley sits down with the secretary with other aides present. as the words of how he wanted to do this came out of his mouth, the secretary just erupted at him, just erupted at it. With the thinking that he was trying to drag his feet, slow walk, however you wanted to find it, this investigation. He wasn't doing enough. He wasn't going to go as far as what they, the secretary,

the president of the White House, wanted them to go. And he blew up at him. Besant was so loud that staff working nearby could hear him. according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Soon, Hurley was out. He was reassigned to be ambassador to the organization for economic cooperation and development. Hurley said in a statement that he was aligned with Bessent

on the Minnesota fraud probe. He said, quote, Scott Bessent is a brilliant and fearless warrior for President Trump and the American people. Bessent has been bringing in his own allies, many of whom he worked with before, including the person who took on Hurley's duties, a man named Gene Lang. He was an advisor to the secretary when he was on Wall Street. The secretary brought him over as a counselor to the Treasury Department, and he's been running,

you know, doing those responsibilities ever since. And he comes from outside. Has Bessent brought in other people like him? Yes. So slowly but surely as these tensions have been kind of rolling through the Treasury Department, he's been bringing in various people. But while he has brought in some people, many have also left. Brian's reporting shows that staffers who cross-Besson have been sidelined or pushed out. And right now, several Senate-confirmed roles remain vacant, like General Counsel and head of legislative affairs.

When we started doing more and more reporting on this, It turned out that many of those people, the dozens of people who have left in historic fashion, some of them were, in fact, leaving because they just didn't want to deal with the Treasury Secretary and his methods any longer. According to the Wall Street Journal's reporting, Besson's reputation is a challenging boss has made it difficult to fill key vacancies. Several potential recruits said they decided not to pursue job opportunities at the Treasury because they heard about Besson's. Besson's behavior. In response to questions about Besson's behavior, a White House spokeswoman said, quote, the level of professionalism and accountability Secretary Bessent has instilled department-wide is one of the great accomplishments of this administration. And what has all of this stuff going on inside Treasury meant for Besson's actual job of overseeing the economy? Well, the pressure's on now.

you know, it's likely that he will be a face of the successes of the failures of these tasks that he's been given. If, in fact, the Treasury Secretary succeeds and strangling off Iran from the world using the tools of the Treasury Department to do that, well, you know, he'll be looked favorably upon. But if things don't go well, if things continue to kind of go in a bad direction with gas prices and other goods, that could become problematic in the next two years of Trump's second term. And we see inflation going up, gas prices are up, there's pressure on rates now. Yeah. This is a tricky cocktail for the Treasury Secretary. Yes, it is. And these are things that they have to think about and deal with almost on a weekly basis.

And how about on Wall Street? Like, are there any signs that investors' confidence in him is being shaken? So what of the Secretary's mentors is Stanley Drunken men, Miller. Stanley Drunken Miller came out with an op-ed criticizing Secretary Besson's expansion of long-dated bond buybacks. And Drunken Miller, who has never at that point criticized the secretary, comes forward with this very sharp critique of that move. And that was, from our reporting, an indication of some on Wall Street starting to question some of the secretary's moves. Two weeks later, Bessent spoke publicly about his approach to markets.

I am the House now. The Treasury Secretary stood by his approach. You can bet against me if you want. Where does he stand with the president? Still in his good graces. There's zero indication that any reporting or any ways that he's handling the Treasury Department is a net negative on him on the secretary. It's basically all things go. He remains in good standing with the president. What does this story show about how things are going inside the Trump administration? Well, I think there's tremendous pressure from the president on down to basically have an answer to the economy.

I think there's tremendous pressure on everybody. And I think the secretary is right in the middle of that. People in the administration, they're going to be the ones under pressure to make changes to things to try to fix this. and it's going to be a tall order for anyone in the administration to handle these problems. That's all for today, Monday, October 19th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in today's episode by Josh Dawsey, Philip Wegman, and Gregory Zuckerman.

It's so good to be back guest hosting for a day. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low No Frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at nofrills.ca.