Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on Meet the Press to debate Kirsten Welker's formatted corporate media talking points. The source of most American division is found in the behavior of the media.
Video and Transcript Below:
[TRANSCRIPT] - KRISTEN WELKER: And joining me now is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Secretary Bessent, welcome back to Meet the Press.
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Kristen, good to be with you today.
KRISTEN WELKER: It's great to have you here in person. Thank you for being here. I want to start right there on the discussion of affordability. You just heard Vice President JD Vance ask people to have, quote, "a little bit of patience" with the administration. Let me ask you, Mr. Secretary, how long do Americans need to be patient? How long do they have to wait for the cost of living to come down?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, Kristen, in March of 2024, I - I wrote a piece, and I talked about the three I's that were killing Americans: immigration, interest rates and inflation. The president's closed the border, and the mass immigration is gone. And that was putting - a lot of the immigration was putting upward pressure on housing, downward pressure on wages. Interest rates are down. And now we are starting to see the affordability - we - the prices get better. We had a very big October for home sales. Energy prices, gas - gasoline is down. We saw - we believe health care is going to come down. We will see an announcement this coming week on that. And so across the board, prices are starting to come down. We're having Thanksgiving week. This will be the lowest cost for a Thanksgiving dinner in four years. Turkey prices are down 16%.
And yet some prices are going up of course. We have seen prices increasing on staples like coffee, bananas, bacon. Inflation has gone up. It's at 3% now up from 2% in April when the tariffs were imposed.
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
No, no, no, no, no. They weren't. So inflation hasn't gone up. And Kristen, the one thing that we're not going to do is do what the Biden administration did and tell the American people they don't know how they feel. They are traumatized and - over the Biden inflation. We have slowed inflation. And we are working very hard to bring it down. Kristen, I can tell you that the Council of Economic Advisers has a study. You know the best way to bring your inflation rate down? Move from a blue state to a red state. Blue state inflation is half a percent higher. And that is because they don't deregulate. They keep prices up. Energy is higher.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Just according to the consumer prices, inflation was at 2.3% back in April, in September 3%. But let me ask you about tariffs. Because there's this big announcement on tariffs. Since you were last on this program, the administration announced it was rolling back tariffs on more than 200 food products. You have said recently that you think tariffs help consumers. If tariffs help consumers, why is the administration rolling them back?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
Well, first - first of all, Kristen, if you look at the data, that imported goods, the inflation has actually been flat. Inflation is up because of the service economy and services. So that has nothing to do with tariffs. And many of the food items where the inflation is coming down, the US - USTR has been working very hard on trade deals. And the trade deals that have been in the works for six or eight months coincide with many Latin American, Central American countries, where the foodstuffs you just named come from.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, and banana prices are up almost 7%, coffee prices up nearly 19%. Isn't the fact that you're rolling back tariffs an admission that ultimately they do drive up prices for consumers?
Exactly. But you know how much you weigh, and you get on the scale every morning. Inflation is a composite number. And we look at everything. So we are trying - we try to push down the things we can control. And as I said that we are working on - the energy prices are down. And everything flows from that. And I think we're going to see these other prices come down. And again, many of these goods were part of trade deals with countries that have been in the works for months.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Very quickly, come down in a matter of weeks, months?
Weeks or months? You said prices will come in weeks or months?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
Some are going to come down in weeks. Some are going to come down in months. We just had - in terms of affordability, we just had the best month in the housing market due to affordability, due to increased supply in October, best October in three years, best month since February.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Let me ask you big picture, Mr. Secretary. You said earlier this month, I'm going to quote you, quote, "I think there are sectors of the economy that are in a recession." Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said, quote, "We're starting to see pockets of the economy that look like they might be in a recession." Which parts of the economy do you believe have dipped into a recession?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
Well, clearly, housing has been struggling. And the - so interest rate sensitive sectors have been in a recession. And, you know, the other thing that was not helpful, Kristen, was the longest government shutdown in history. It was 1.5% hit to the GDP, 9,500 flights cancelled. And, you know, the Democrats didn't care that they hurt the American economy and anything to stop Donald Trump.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, big picture, is the country at risk - the entire country at risk of being in a recession?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
No. I am very confident about 2026. Because what we are going to see is the - the president's done peace deals, tax deals, and trade deals, the One Big Beautiful Bill. And, you know, to go back to affordability, affordability has two components. So it's price of goods and real incomes. So under the One Big Beautiful Bill, especially for working Americans, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. Auto deductibility - auto deductibility on loans for American cars, that's all kicking in. Americans have not changed their withholdings. So we are going to see substantial - substantial refunds to working families in the first quarter of 2026. Americans will change their withholding. And they will get an increase in real income. The trade deals that we've done, I was just at home town, Charleston, South Carolina. Boeing is expanding their Dreamliner plant, 1,000 new jobs. And I think we're going to see these plant openings every week. I am very, very optimistic on 2026. We have set the table for a very strong non-inflationary growth economy.
KRISTEN WELKER: Okay. Let me ask you about the big news on the world stage. You just talked about the president's peace deals. Let's talk about Ukraine. U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Ukrainian officials who I've spoken to say the peace plan for Russia and Ukraine, as written, only benefits Russia. Let me ask you simply, Mr. Secretary. Was this 28-point plan written by Russia?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: I - I have no information on that, Kristen. But I can tell you, I am the highest ranking U.S. official to have visited Ukraine. I went last February. And when I went last February, I went with an economic cooperation agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine. President Zelenskyy pushed back against it. The same people you're just talking about, they pushed against it. Mainstream media pushed back against it. You know what? We did it three months later, and now it is the centerpiece for the Ukrainian economy. That this agreement is even funding military plants for the very innovative military sector in Ukraine. So, you know, I would be very careful on conventional wisdom. And to go back to your question, it is a peace negotiation.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, okay, to that point, Republican Senator Mike Rounds, who was briefed by Secretary Rubio, came out and he said this. Quote, "It's not our peace plan. It looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with." Secretary Rubio says the U.S. did write the plan. But regardless of who wrote it, U.S. lawmakers are concerned that it benefits Russia over Ukraine. Is the administration - is President Trump planning to pressure Ukraine to accept this deal?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Look, at the end of the day it's going to be a decision with the Ukrainians. President Trump is a president of peace. This war would not have started - there was no Ukrainian territory taken any time that he's been in office. Everything else, Crimea and this move have been when President Trump wasn't there. President Trump has put more pressure on the Russian federation with economic sanctions. The - the real - the laggards here are the Europeans. The Europeans tell me, "Oh, we are doing our 19th sanctions package." In my mind, Kristen, if you're gonna do something 19 times, you failed. Instead, President Trump moved forward with a bold initiative that the Europeans would not follow us on. He put a - a 25% tariff on India because they were buying Russian oil. The - the Russian oil going into the Indian refineries, guess who was buying that? The Europeans. They are funding the war on themselves. President Trump two weeks ago sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, the two biggest Russian oil companies. And the price of Russian oil has collapsed.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Very quickly. Is the Thanksgiving deadline set by President Trump a firm deadline?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
I - I haven't spoken to him about it. But I am - I am confident that the peace process is moving forward.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Okay. Let me ask you about another topic this week that got a lot of attention. Six congressional Democrats released a video with a message to service members and intelligence officials. Take a look.
Threats to our constitution aren't just coming from abroad.
President Trump accused these lawmakers of, quote, "seditious behavior punishable by death." Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that every order President Trump gives is lawful. Are you confident that every order that President Trump gives is lawful, Mr. Secretary?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
What - Kristen, what I am confident of is that this was a display of gross, gross negligence here. There are 2.1 million service members. And you're probably going to ask - going to say, "Oh, the, like, off-the-rail representatives have gotten death threats." Well, what about the 2.1 million service members? They - they have put their lives at risk. There is one commander-in-chief. And when you step outside of the chain of command and try to create the noise and chaos, that only helps our enemies.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Are you confident, though, Mr. Secretary, that every order that President Trump gives is in fact lawful as Karoline Leavitt has said?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
I - I am confident of that. And I am also confident that this was a complete mistake. They should retract it.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Okay before I let you go, I have to ask you about your op-ed in The Washington Post this morning. A lot of folks are going to wake up to that. You call for an end to the filibuster. In the past, Leader Thune has said that it's just not happening. There aren't the votes. Mr. Secretary, do you believe that you have enough votes, that the president has enough votes to get rid of the filibuster?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
Well, we - we will see come January 30th. Because that's the point of my editorial is to put the Senate on notice that the Democrats kept the government shut down. And Ezra Klein in The New York Times took the mask off. He said this wasn't about health care. This was about stopping totalitarianism. The Democrats haven't been able to stop President Trump in the courts. They haven't been able to stop him in the media. So they had to harm the American people, 1.5% hit to GDP, $11 billion permanent hit. They don't care. So I believe that Senate Democrats - if Senate Democrats close the government again, that Senate Republicans should immediately abrogate the filibuster. You should - you should ask Senator Klobuchar whether she will adhere to the filibuster and whether she will close the government again.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Just yes or no, though. Do you acknowledge at this point you don't have the votes right now to do that?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
We will see. Can have them on January 3rd when we see this bad Democratic behavior.
KRISTEN WELKER:
All right. Secretary Bessent, thank you so much for being here and for the robust conversation. We really appreciate it.