Treasury Secretary, US Treasury
'I Didn't Think There Could Be Anyone The Worse Than Comrade DeBlasio': Bessent Blasts Mamdani
During remarks to the Faith and Freedom Coalition 2026 Conference on Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke critically of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
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About Scott Bessent
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been a prominent voice on economic policy, national security, and financial initiatives in recent months. He has discussed the administration's economic agenda, stating that the economy was "growing at 4%" before the Iran conflict and expressing confidence that inflation would return to target. Bessent has touted job growth, saying the U.S. created 900,000 private sector jobs since President Trump took office, and has described the past three months of job numbers as a "blowout." He has also promoted the "Trump accounts" program, which provides a $1,000 seed investment from the Treasury for every child born during President Trump's term, and announced that philanthropists can donate stock into these accounts. Alongside First Lady Melania Trump, Bessent launched "Fostering the Future" accounts, a dedicated savings and investment vehicle for foster youth, which he described as "the most important benefit for young people since the GI Bill." Bessent has also focused on counterterrorism and financial oversight. He delivered remarks on "far-left political terrorism," stating that the Treasury is expanding efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance. He argued that "nonprofit status is a privilege" and that the Treasury will hold directors and trustees accountable for their grantees. On foreign policy, Bessent discussed the administration's approach to Iran, saying the U.S. military destroyed a large part of Iran's missile stockpile and that for the first time since 1979, Iranians are willing to discuss their nuclear program. He stated that the Treasury will oversee frozen Iranian funds released from Qatar, with a large portion going to buy U.S. foodstuffs and medicines.
Transcript (29 segments)
I
Interviewer0:01
Well, Mr. Secretary, we had our good mutual friend Dave McCormack here a little earlier, who was once head of one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, and I...
S
Scott Bessent0:12
And also an under secretary of treasury.
I
Interviewer0:14
That's right. Good point. And you, as I said, had a very distinguished career on Wall Street. You arguably know more about what's going on with our economy than anybody else. You're watching all the data. What's your view of the economy right now? We obviously had some energy inflation coming out of the Iran conflict. What's your overarching view of where the economy is today?
S
Scott Bessent0:41
Well, I think middle of February the president asked me, 'Well, Scott, how do you think the economy is doing?' And I said, 'Sir, I think we're growing at 4%. I think inflation's going to be back to target in July.' And President Trump is constantly calibrating, and I think he thought because we had a strong economy, because he had made us energy independent, because we were resilient, then also we had to go into Iran because they were two weeks away from a nuclear weapon, that we're very strong. We had this six weeks of fighting, 90 days total, and now I think we're coming out on the other side. The US economy has been the most resilient in the world, and the employment numbers for the past three months have been gangbusters against all the surveys, and gasoline is going to come back down. This is an energy-induced inflation, and we are actually lower now than we were on February 27th in crude oil markets. I think gasoline takes a little longer to come back down, but I think we'll be right back down, and I think we actually may be lower because the world is awash in crude.
I
Interviewer2:17
And we've done our job in that respect. Back too, right?
S
Scott Bessent2:20
We have. I tell you, I was at the Petroleum Club of Houston three weeks ago, and I can't tell you the difference between being in Texas and being in New York. I was in New York and at the Petroleum Club Houston. They say the Pledge of Allegiance, there's a prayer before the meeting, and then you get to speak. They don't do that in New York. And people are voting with their feet. Every two people leave California and one comes to Texas, I think every minute.
I
Interviewer3:00
And I think I saw, Mr. Secretary, that for the first time in the post-World War II era, there are now more Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Texas than in the state of California. I think I saw that.
S
Scott Bessent3:14
Yeah. Well, California, New York... Look, I lived in New York for a long time. I was from South Carolina. I went to school in the Northeast and then lived in New York for many years. People say, 'Do you miss New York?' And I said, 'Well, I miss the New York I lived in.' When I got there, it was David Dinkins, who was a very nice man but not a very good mayor. It was kind of Kolkata without the cows. Then Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg came in, and the place was just humming. You see how leadership matters. Bill de Blasio came in, and I didn't think there could be anyone worse than Comrade de Blasio, and now we've got it. I've got to hand it to President Trump. I went to the meeting with Mayor Adams, and President Trump looked at him after he'd won in December and said, 'You're the leader of the Democratic Party.' So Donald Trump predicted what's going on back in December. And what's happened now is everyone says, 'Well, these are extreme ideas.' They're mainstream now. They are the mainstream of the Democratic Party.
I
Interviewer4:42
Yeah. There's no question about it.
S
Scott Bessent4:44
I was on the phone with Senator Collins of Maine yesterday. I'm not allowed to comment on other candidates, but just her temperament and the policies, it's a stark contrast.
I
Interviewer5:05
Yes. And speaking of stark contrast, you gave a great speech this week to the New York Economic Club, which I believe you were a member of for many years. I would commend that speech to anybody who wants to pull it up and read the transcript or watch the video. But you talked, Mr. Secretary, about the fact that we are no longer going to allow our economic and national security to diverge. You went through a number of key things, including our ability to produce what we need so we're not dependent upon adversaries either in a pandemic or at a time of military conflict. You talked about supply chains. Would you give a synopsis of that speech and talk about how it drives Trump's economic policy?
S
Scott Bessent6:00
Sure. Whenever I'm called spontaneously to give a prayer, I always have a fallback: I talk about yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So yesterday, at the end of World War II, it was good for US national policy to rebuild our allies in Europe to make sure communism did not flourish, and it gave us the greatest economy in the world. We tolerated a lot because we were growing so much faster than the rest of the world and were concerned about the Soviet Union. We let that way of doing business go for too long. We had the China shock in the early 2000s that gutted our manufacturing sector. We brought down the Iron Curtain, and it was almost like we needed another worthy adversary. But we let China come right up behind us. We have a $30 trillion economy; they now have a $20 trillion economy, up 20 or 40 times. The other thing that happened, and I've said it many times, the only good thing about COVID was it was a dry run for if we were to get into a conflict with a major power. We can't defend ourselves anymore. It was a wake-up call, and I don't understand why the Biden administration didn't do anything because there were a couple very smart people in there.
I
Interviewer7:58
A couple of... you have any names?
S
Scott Bessent8:00
A couple of two. And look, we've had more cabinet meetings in a year than they did all four years. It was kind of vanilla chocolate was the decision President Biden made. But we let our national interests get away from us. In this era of free trade, we decided... Mike Pence and I, and I think Vice President Pence is a patriot, but he was describing the old world of unfettered free trade where our manufacturing base left and the middle part of the country got hollowed out. I said, 'Mr. Vice President, we can't tell people let them eat flat screens. I think people would rather have their communities back. They'd rather have the dignity of work than cheap gadgets.' The Wall Street Journal took a shot at me. They called me an Ivy League populist. I tapped back and said, 'Well, that's why you're called the Wall Street Journal and not the Main Street Journal.' At the Economic Club, someone asked me what I would like for my legacy to be and what the president's legacy will be for his second administration. I said parallel prosperity. Wall Street always does great, but it's Main Street's turn to catch up. Main Street came back. We have spent a lot of time at Treasury with our small and community banks. Elizabeth Warren is always, 'Oh, I'm afraid of a bank going under.' Well, Senator, you put 45% of the small banks in America under the financial regulations from 2008, 2009. It was too big to fail, but they became too small to succeed. Our main street and small banks finance small business, agriculture, community real estate loans. We're trying to bring those back. So the stock market can do great, but it is time for Main Street to do better.
I
Interviewer10:44
Now, as you know, we're celebrating this week the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Working Families Tax Cut. We brought the corporate rates down, accelerated depreciation for investment, the Trump accounts, expansion of the child tax credit, standard deduction, no tax on tips, reduced taxes on Social Security benefits for seniors. It's now been in place for a year. What impact is that having on working families, small businesses, job creation, and the larger economy?
S
Scott Bessent11:26
Look, I think there's something here for everyone. There's also private education funding, school choice. Blue states aren't taking it because the teachers unions have the dagger up to their throat. This is crazy. I have a little fun when I go for my congressional hearings. There's one very impassioned congresswoman who said, 'Well, this could be used for a racist private school.' I said, 'Your state's not taking it. It doesn't have to be used for school. If you're in a blue state and your child's in public school, you can use it for tutoring, special needs children, school trips.' But they don't want it. It's unbelievable.
I
Interviewer12:25
Has any blue state other than Kathy Hochul in New York agreed to take these funds?
S
Scott Bessent12:30
New York and Colorado have said they're going to do it, but they haven't done it.
I
Interviewer12:34
They haven't done it.
S
Scott Bessent12:35
They haven't done it. And remember, the governor of Colorado is like one of the 20 potential Democratic presidential candidates. But the one big beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut, was this incredible barbell. On one side, it had very efficient things for business: automatic 100% expensing, permanent. We're never going to have to... What I love about the Working Families Tax Cut is everything's permanent.
I
Interviewer13:13
Explain that, because a lot of people don't understand that there was a 10-year sunset on the first Trump tax cut on a lot of provisions. Things like full expensing, whether you're big business or small, you were able to for the first few years expense if you bought a MacBook for your business, filing cabinets, or if you were a big company and built a new assembly line. It was 100% immediate deductibility.
S
Scott Bessent13:46
When I go out, I was at the Winnebago plant in Minnesota, and they said because we could do the immediate expensing, we decided to build a battery factory in Florida. It made it worthwhile. So we're seeing a capex boom with a 17% pickup in capex. I think that's a combination of tariff policy and tax policy. So you've got this very pro-business policy over here. I was in my hometown, Charleston, South Carolina, and Boeing has their second location there. They're doing a 50% expansion for the Dreamliners. That is 3,000 construction jobs that are going to turn into a thousand great high-paying factory jobs. Then on the other side, you have the president's signature policies. Not everybody on our side of the aisle was in favor of all of these. They said, 'We don't know if it's good economic policy,' but the president knew it was great for American workers. I'm also the acting head of the IRS, so I could see the forms. 44% of the tax returns we got had one of the president's signature policies on it: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, 85% of our seniors did not pay taxes on Social Security, and the deductibility on the interest of auto loans for American-made cars. I went with the president to Las Vegas on tax day, April 15th. He likes to do spontaneous surveys of the audience. He went through all four provisions. I would have thought Las Vegas would have been the tip capital of the world, but no tax on overtime was by far the biggest. That was bigger than tips. I was out at the Reagan Library about five weeks ago in Simi Valley, California. I did a roundtable with small business owners. They said our employees love no tax on overtime. It's the American way. You want to work harder, you keep more of it. But the employers love it because they have great employees who want to work more.
I
Interviewer16:23
Yeah. Well, as you know, I'm going to be at an event at the Treasury Department this week celebrating...
S
Scott Bessent16:31
Yeah, with Art Laffer.
I
Interviewer16:33
With Art Laffer. Art's great. Art's the original Reagan-era souvenir. He says that if you want to see a growing economy, you don't tax people who work and you don't pay people not to work. I think you and President Trump have got both of those right, and the future is very bright because of it.
S
Scott Bessent16:58
I can tell you that President Trump... we've never had this many Americans working as we have under President Trump.
I
Interviewer17:07
Yeah. And the best is yet to come.
S
Scott Bessent17:08
Best is yet to come. And you know this, we strongly supported you for secretary.
I
Interviewer17:14
I know. You are doing a phenomenal job. The president is lucky to have you. He values your counsel. And Scott, on behalf of all of our members, I want to thank you for what you're doing for the working men and women of this country. Let's thank Scott Bessent for coming one more time. Thank you so much.