Here is the full transcript of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s interview at 2025 DealBook Summit with DealBook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin, December 4, 2025.
BRIEF NOTES: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joins Andrew Ross Sorkin at the 2025 DealBook Summit to unpack the Trump administration’s economic playbook. In this wide-ranging conversation, he explains why he changed his mind on tariffs, how they fit into U.S. strategy on China, and what they mean for inflation, trade, and the dollar.
Bessent also weighs in on the future of the Federal Reserve, the rise of private credit, and the administration’s push to reshore manufacturing and de-risk supply chains. Finally, he outlines the new “Trump accounts” for children and the Dell family’s multibillion-dollar pledge to seed a more “shareholder” America.
Welcome and Introduction
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: The 79th Treasury Secretary of the United States is here. Scott Bessent, he is, of course, at the center of all of the major policy decisions of the moment. And we’re going to cover them all. We’re going to talk about the economy, affordability, global trade, national security, the future of the Fed and so much more. I want to welcome you to DealBook.
SCOTT BESSENT: Thank you, Andrew. Great to be here.
The Evolution on Tariffs
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I’ll tell you where I want to start. I want to start this conversation and talk to you about tariffs because I think almost singularly it’s the biggest shift in the United States and really the global economy. And it’s a philosophical choice and a practical shift.
And I want to understand your thinking and I’ll tell you why I want to understand your thinking about this, because when I went back and was really looking at sort of how your own thinking has evolved, it clearly is different today than it was before you were the Treasury Secretary.
So back in 2024, this is long before Trump had won, by the way. You had predicted he was going to win. And this is long before you were the Treasury Secretary. You wrote an investor letter while running Keybridge and you wrote the following: “One of your differentiated views that we have is that Trump will pursue a weak dollar policy rather than implementing tariffs. Tariffs are inflationary,” you said, “and would strengthen the dollar. Hardly a good starting point for a U.S. industrial renaissance.”
And I read that and I thought to myself, help us just understand your own thinking on this issue.
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, Andrew, I think a big part of my investment career and to the extent I was successful was being able to evolve my thinking. And I believe that what we’ve seen, and I have to say that President Trump has been right on this, that he told me early on, he said, “Scott, the United States is like a department store. Everyone wants to shop here and only the United States can do what we’re about to do.”
And I watched as the leader of nation after nation, trade negotiator after trade negotiator, leader after leader, President Trump has normalized the idea of a 15 to 20% tariff. And I think what goes, everyone likes the hysteria of prices and this and that. But what has gone unnoticed is USTR Jamison Greer, with President Trump’s support, has done an incredible job of dropping the non-tariff trade barriers and the tariffs from other countries.
So when you see this deal and you say, well, Indonesia has agreed to, and by the way, Indonesia is getting a little recalcitrant here, but you know, a good actor. Malaysia has agreed to do this. They might have dropped 8,000 line tariffs so U.S. business is actually flowing much better.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Would you say you’re surprised then if that’s true? Would you say, given where you were two years ago, where you are now on this issue, would you say I got it wrong, I missed something?
SCOTT BESSENT: I think, look again, I’ve had an open mind and that I’ve evolved on this and that the president’s been right and the president has a, I said it publicly, President has a much higher risk appetite than I do.
My evolution went to, well, I think we should do smaller incremental tariffs. And the president went in with a maximalist position and that is actually what gave us the leverage in the negotiations by saying, okay, you’ve got a 35% tariff. When Japan agrees to a 15% tariff, you know, it’s domo arigato, it’s thank you.
Tariffs and Inflation
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Why has there been such a reticence for the administration to say, you know what, we’re going after these tariffs, we think they’re bringing in a lot of revenue, we think it’s good for labor and you know what, it might have inflationary impact and we’re cool with that.
SCOTT BESSENT: Andrew, first of all, I think in your mind, what’s inflation?
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Well, I think anytime you see prices move up beyond the sort of standard, if you will, and I don’t know what the standard you think should be, but anytime that there’s a period of time where there are artificial things happening that are effectively pressing prices up.
SCOTT BESSENT: Well there you could get a one-time price adjustment. Inflation is a generalized price and persistent price increase. So there’s big difference that this hasn’t set off some inflationary mindset.
And the other thing too that I missed but I saw early on in the negotiations is that, you know, China is a very different economic animal and they are willing to subsidize labor, subsidize production, subsidize capital and because of that they depend on this export economy. And I think if you were to look, the Chinese have consistently on the Chinese portion of the imports, the Chinese have consistently cut prices. Consistently cut prices.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But you don’t look, I mean this…
SCOTT BESSENT: And I don’t believe tariffs are attacks.
But I, and I was surprised, I got a couple of the Democrats to step into the bear trap. They said, “Well, tariffs are attacks.” He said, “Okay, so you believe tariffs are attacks?”
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Yes.
SCOTT BESSENT: You believe tariffs are inflationary.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Yes.
SCOTT BESSENT: So you believe taxes are inflationary. So join me and cut taxes. And that will be disinflationary. We could give…
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But then that’s an acknowledgment that to some degree it’s a tax.
SCOTT BESSENT: No, no, no. But I’m just parroting what they say. We could give a 5%. We could reduce, according to that logic, we could reduce inflation across the country by cutting the sales tax 5%. Right.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Look, I understand this is Bank of America. They say, “We think there’s no debate tariffs push consumer prices higher.” Jay Powell, who I know you’re not a fan of, who was here last year, said “Inflation away from tariffs is actually not so far from our 2% goal.” But of course he’s saying it’s away from tariffs. And so the tariff piece, clearly the…
SCOTT BESSENT: The tariff piece is a small part of the economy. You know, you’re in this fever swamp of Democratic talking points. And by the way, a huge number of the Democrats, a huge number of the Democrats, they are in favor of tariffs. They just can’t say it now because they can’t deviate from the hive.
I think if you were to go back and look at Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, so now because it’s the Trump tariffs, they got to be against.
Supreme Court and Tariff Authority
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Okay, let me ask you a different question then, which is there is going to be a ruling. We’re going to hear from the Supreme Court at some point soon, likely about tariffs, if in fact they strike them down or push them back. And I’m just curious what kind of planning you’ve been doing, what you think the different permutations are that this could take.
SCOTT BESSENT: A couple of things, Andrew, is, I can tell you I was not in the same hearing that the New York Times and the mainstream media was in. It was a completely, the reporting was, the hearing was very different, very different.
When Amy Coney Barrett said that if we undo this, it’ll be a mess, it was taken as, “Oh, it’ll be a mess.” She actually meant it as we’ve got to be very judicious, which I assume the Supreme Court would be. But they’ve got to be very prudent about doing this.
And I just saw that Costco is going to file for a refund. Okay, tell me what kind of refund Costco’s going to do. If the foreign producer lowered their price, they’ve taken a deduction. Right? They’ve taken a deduction on having paid the tariffs. So, and I am optimistic on this.
Everyone says it’ll be a loss for the administration. I think it’ll be a loss for the American people. And if you lose, what do you do? But the ultimate goal here, that the revenue and I have been very consistent on this, that tariffs are a shrinking ice cube. The ultimate goal is to rebalance trade and to bring back domestic production.
Okay. Last year and to finish that, the IEEPA authority. And if anyone listened or looked at the transcript that it was kind of the Neo theater, the absurdity because the plaintiff said, and I can’t remember whether it was Justice Alito, I think it was Justice Alito said, “So you believe that the president has the right to put on an embargo but not a 1% tariff?” And he said, “Yes.”
But look, there are, we can recreate the exact tariff structure with 301s, with 232s, with the, I think that’s a 122.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But not permanently.
SCOTT BESSENT: Permanently.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You think you’re…
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, the 122s aren’t permanently, but the others. We can do it. The IEEPA authority gave the president and our team much more negotiating room.
And let me tell you, there were plenty of other times, and I said it several times, if IEEPA is an emergency power, if the fentanyl crisis wasn’t an emergency power or an emergency, then what was? Now, because of the fentanyl tariffs, the Chinese are making the first step forward that they’ve made and I don’t know when fentanyl came on the scene, but they are making a robust effort to redo that.
On October 8, when the Chinese announced that every product in the world that had a 0.01% rare earth Chinese content needed a license, President Trump was able to threaten them with a 100% tariff. They immediately came to the negotiating table. That’s emergency authority.
Income Tax and Tariff Revenue
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I want to talk to you about China in a second, but I do want to ask you one final question on the tariff piece, which is the president said last week that potentially given the amount of money being brought in as a function of tariffs, this goes to the tax issue that he believes he could ultimately lower the income tax over the next several years. Are you planning to do that?
SCOTT BESSENT: We’ll have to wait on the ruling.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And that’s dependent on the ruling. But you’re saying if you get, if you get it…
SCOTT BESSENT: Andrew, we’ll see where it goes.
The Federal Reserve and Independence
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Okay, let me pivot here to the Federal Reserve if I could, because Kevin Hassett is now said to be the frontrunner. I think Shane Kaplan might be here from Polymarket this morning. Polymarket odds right now have him at 70%.
Can you give us any insight as to whether Hassett’s either getting this job, but perhaps even more importantly, how much you think it matters that the Fed chair appear to be independent from the President?
SCOTT BESSENT: A lot to unpack there. So I will point out that during the contest for Treasury Secretary, I was at 80, then I was at 16, then I went to 100. So the Polymarket is only as good as the informational inputs.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We’ll find Shane up here somewhere, but keep going.
SCOTT BESSENT: You can’t, in the efficient market hypothesis, it’s assumed that everyone has perfect information. And in this you can’t. I have asymmetric information.
And I think the important thing to remember here is that it’s a board and then several other voters from the regional banks. So the chair of the Federal Reserve has the ability to move and start the discussion, but at the end of the day, he or she cannot. He or she is one vote.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But you, I believe, have a, and we were talking about this last week, you have a larger problem with the broader Fed construct today and the way even Fed presidents from the regional banks are selected.
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, there are a couple of things. I think that the Fed, as it used to be known, the creature from Jekyll Island that has become a creature that the Fed doesn’t understand itself, that when you think about how can they set monetary policy, inflation, jobs policy, it has gone from a monetary interest rate function.
Now there’s a balance sheet function which I can tell you no one understands. They’ve gone to an ample reserve via corridor that I think some of the volatility we saw in November was the ample reserve corridor being tested. And then there’s a regulatory component. So it’s become this very complicated calculus. It’s not just rates up, rates down.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And so when you, but let’s talk about this president issue because I think that part of what you’ve been talking about is that the regional presidents you think actually are not as independent unto themselves that you want.
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, no, no. I think when I was on Squawk Box last week, Becky said, “Well, Susan Collins at the Boston Fed says this,” and you know, I, that her people in her district are having an affordability problem. I should have said, “Well, she’s in a red state, affordability is worse than,” I mean in a blue state, affordability is worse than a blue state.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We can debate that, but keep going.
SCOTT BESSENT: There’s no debate.
SCOTT BESSENT: The number 50 basis points higher inflation, the 10 highest. The inflation rates, they are in blue cities.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But just so you know, because I went to look at this. This is the joint Economic Committee 2000. Since 2021, the highest inflation over the past four years has been in red states, especially Florida. Talking about current, current, current, not over the past four years.
SCOTT BESSENT: Right. Today.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Okay. I would think four years would be a reasonable trend line to look at today.
SCOTT BESSENT: Today it is 50 basis points higher. So anyway, and look, the people are voting with their feet. I have the American people on my side that New York, Illinois, California, Massachusetts are depopulating.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And they’re going to places in Florida, like Florida, where interest rates are. I’m saying inflation’s up 22% for the last four years.
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, inflation then inflation is up 25% nationally. So it’s lower.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I believe in New York it was 19. Sorry, I believe in New York it was 19.
SCOTT BESSENT: I don’t think that’s right.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We can go through that.
Federal Reserve Regional Bank Presidents
SCOTT BESSENT: But to come back, I do believe that there is now a disconnect from the original framing with the Federal Reserve, that the Federal Reserve presidents in the regional banks were meant to be from their district. And now there’s this idea of importing a bright shiny object. And three of the Federal Reserve member for the regional banks, two of them used to work at the New York Fed. One of them was on a committee at the New York Fed, was in a New York investment bank. So do they represent their district?
So I am going to start advocating going forward, not retroactively, that regional Fed presidents must have lived in their district from at least three years.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Is that a rule that you plan to put in place? Can you put that in place? Is that saying the Fed would have to do?
SCOTT BESSENT: I think that we can. It may be Congress, it may be. The Fed has final. The Fed, the chair and the board have final say on who the regional bank president, the regional bank boards can select. So I believe that you would just say unless someone’s lived in the district for three years, we’re going to veto them.
Economic Outlook and Affordability
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Okay, let me pivot to the economy and a watchword which has been the word of the day. Affordability. The President called the word affordability a con job yesterday. I’m curious what you think of the idea of affordability and where you think we are in the economic cycle. This is Jamie Dimon back in last month he said the lower income, wages haven’t gone up for a long period of time. He did not call the economy recessionary, but weakening. Do you think it’s weakening right now?
SCOTT BESSENT: I think that certain sectors are and maybe it goes back to the reason we need interest rate cuts that clearly housing has weakened and that I believe that again the Fed doesn’t really understand this calculus of we’ve had balance sheet roll off which is tightening. We have had the two rate cuts but I am very optimistic about the economy next year. We’ve had a 15% growth in capex and historically capex is always followed by employment growth.
China Trade Deal
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You mentioned China. Want to discuss China for a moment which is there is a deal or we’re working towards a deal in place. Part of the deal. The most recent deal was that China was supposed to buy 12 million metric tons of US soybeans. As of just about a week or two ago, they had only bought 330,000. By the end of this year, no.
SCOTT BESSENT: By the end of the season. So I think that’ll be February 28th.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: So okay, we’re still at 330.
SCOTT BESSENT: I promise you you can try to try to stir it up. They are in a perfect cadence to complete that goal.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But 330,000.
SCOTT BESSENT: No, no, no. Again, bad information.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Bad information, Bad information.
SCOTT BESSENT: If I look at the loadings then the, their purchase by their central government is well into the correct cadence.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Okay, so let me ask you a different question.
SCOTT BESSENT: We’re going to, we’re going to and I will say that China is on track to keep every part of the deal. Every part of the deal.
Taiwan and Strategic Ambiguity
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We’re going to show you an interview a little bit later today with the president of Taiwan. And of course Taiwan is very, very worried right now about the possibility of China invading. They just announced a plan to spend a lot more on their military. I’m curious right now whether you believe that if China were to invade Taiwan, whether the US Given its strategic ambiguity policy would come to the rescue.
SCOTT BESSENT: I don’t answer hypotheticals.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: That’s a good way to stop us in our tracks. But how should the folks in Taiwan think about the relationship then?
SCOTT BESSENT: They should think that it’s unchanged.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And what does that mean?
SCOTT BESSENT: That we are in a very good equilibrium. And that you were starting with this, well, what if China invades tomorrow? I have found that since I’ve come on this side, my least favorite word in journalism is “could.” Because when a journalist has no story said, well, they could.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But that’s why Taiwan’s spending all the money that they are. That’s why they’re ringing their hands. They’re worried about something that could happen and they don’t know whether we are really an ally of theirs or not?
SCOTT BESSENT: The United States is an ally of China. The relationship remains unchanged.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Of China, not Taiwan.
SCOTT BESSENT: Sorry, you said of China. Just wondering. And Taiwan and Taiwan. Okay. The relationship remains unchanged.
Foreign Investment and Trade Deals
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let me ask you a separate question, which is about a lot of the big investments we’ve been hearing over the last couple of months. The president announcing huge number of transactions with countries like Saudi Arabia and others that plan to invest in the United States. MBS was at the White House, said he was going to spend a trillion dollars. And I’m curious if you could just help us understand the scale and size of these investments and how realistic they are. And I say that because a trillion dollars happens to be basically nearly the entirety of the GDP of Saudi Arabia. And so how long, you know, if the GDP of Saudi Arabia is $1.3 trillion and they’re pledging a trillion dollars to us, how that works in practice?
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I think that we can see a cadence that’s developing. I was back in my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, and the Boeing plant is there, the bills, the Dreamliners expanding by 50% because of the foreign investment that as part of the trade deals we have negotiated, President Trump has negotiated 1,000 new Boeing airplanes.
So we are getting into this cadence that with pharmaceutical reshoring, with semiconductors. Apple has said that they are going to. I think we’re up to $600 billion now. So, you know, I think that we have set the stage and we have these commitments and those commitments are due to certainty on tax, certainty on energy, certainty on regulation.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But you think. I guess my question is, you know, the administration has talked about $21 trillion in investment being made in the U.S. this is according to Bloomberg. So you can go after them if you want to go after them. They say a review of the 137 projects on the White House’s webpage. They believe there’s only $7 trillion in pledges that can be considered real investment.
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, first of all, let’s go back to that. Okay, only $7 trillion. Say that again, by the way.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I’m not.
SCOTT BESSENT: Let’s go back.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let’s give you credit for it.
SCOTT BESSENT: The question is only $7 trillion. What was the entire. What was the entire FDI during the Biden administration?
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I’m not going to tell you that this is not extraordinary. The question is whether the public is being told the right amount.
De-Risking Supply Chains
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, the thing is, again, we have asymmetric information. We know which companies have committed to reshore production. As part of that, we arrived and back to the China relationship that I always say we do not want to decouple, we want to de-risk. And everyone who was in the administration the past four years should be ashamed because they did nothing to de-risk.
So whether it’s semiconductors, whether, and I will tell you back to Taiwan, the single greatest economic threat is that the single point of failure for the global economy would be the disruption on chips from the island of Taiwan.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Taiwan becomes more or less valuable strategically to us and the rest of the world as we move more of that manufacturing onshore. Meaning the president says he wants to have 50% of all manufacturing chips in the US here in the next two years. If that was. Even if that were to happen, does that make it more likely that China could go effectively take over Taiwan without us going, getting involved in. Because we’d say we’ve got the chips, we’re okay, or does that make it more likely that we would go protect them?
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I think that that’s like a flawed question because it’s like saying that if I have insurance, do I want my house to catch them? Is my house more or less likely to catch on fire? Right. Well, because you’re de-risking doesn’t mean you’ve changed anything.
Private Credit and Financial Stability
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Going to have Larry Fink and Brian Armstrong out here in just a moment. We’re going to talk about the markets and everything else. One of the big questions in the marketplace right now is private credit. There’s a great worry that perhaps private credit is, as Jeffrey Gundlach has described it, garbage lending. Howard Marks is saying cockroaches in the coal mine, that if there’s a crisis in the future, this is where it’s going to come from. What do you think?
SCOTT BESSENT: I think that if we think about the framing of private credit, what. First of all, let’s ask why did we have we seen this growth in private credit? The growth in private credit, in my view, is because the regulatory framework for the regulated banking system has been too tight. So we at Treasury, I lead something called the Financial Stability Oversight Council, and we have been working with the regulators to create more credit in the regulated banking system.
I think it was Oliver Wyman’s numbers, not mine. When we finish, the regulatory changes that we’ve announced will be $2.5 trillion more in lending capacity from the banks. So I think that private credit, I almost think of it as a first loss tranche, that it’s investors not.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And so you don’t think it’s connected back into the banking system more broadly?
SCOTT BESSENT: I think it could be connected back into the banking system. But I think that there is a large buffer there. I have a different worry about private credit than other people do. My worry is that in a downturn it could be very pro-cyclical. That because it is financed by investors, if there was some kind of financial instability, if there was a downturn in the economy.
Treasury through the regul and the regulators and the Fed, we can give window guidance to the regulators to loosen lending the restrictions. The Fed can ease monetary conditions, maybe go to the balance sheet. My worry is that private credit becomes very pro-cyclical. That when you have investors in the investment business for 35 or 40 years in your book 1929, when you have investors as opposed to a government entity, they will always panic at the bottom.
Business Community and the Trump Administration
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We’re going to run out of time. And I have a couple of important questions for you. One is just about the relationship between the business community and the Trump administration. I want to give you an example of this. I want to get your thoughts on it because it’s in the headlines right now. And it was something I had planned to ask David Ellison if he was going to be here on this stage.
So David Ellison, as you know, is trying to buy Time Warner Discovery. There is news in the past week that he has greenlit a film called Rush Hour 4 by Brett Ratner. Because the president effectively suggested or said this is one of my favorite films and I want to do this for Brett. And so now he is doing this. And people look at this and think that this is an example of a company trying to. That the president is trying to push him and they are trying to placate the president. What do you think of that?
SCOTT BESSENT: Not much.
Corporate Influence and Presidential Involvement
SCOTT BESSENT: That a transaction of that size would be.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But do you think it’s appropriate for the president to be asking them to do something like that? And is it appropriate for a company to be doing something on the other end to placate the president?
SCOTT BESSENT: I don’t know. Is the Obamas’ contract with Netflix, is that appropriate?
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: My understanding is that came after he was the President of the United States. And that’s the distinction because these are things that are going to be in front of the president and the administration.
SCOTT BESSENT: Okay, so for the first son to have a contract with the Ukraine energy.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Well, and Don Jr. has a relationship. I don’t know. We’re seeing is that Polymarket and with Kalshi. And so it’s very complicated. I mean, I’m curious how you think about these things.
SCOTT BESSENT: These things are very complicated and I think that it is like, you know, if you want to start pulling at every thread, then let’s start pulling at every thread of where Chinese Chuck Schumer’s children work. Let’s start pulling at every thread where every one of his former staffers work.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But you appreciate that there’s a large swath of the public that looks at these relationships and says, this is different. And by the way, I had somebody who’s a big supporter of the President actually said, it just happens now out in the open. His argument was this used to happen privately all the time. The President is just more explicit about it here. That’s the sympathetic view.
SCOTT BESSENT: Yeah. Look, I think that that is completely offsides that the President could have said. I think it’d be a great movie. I had no idea. I wasn’t there. Right. But you know, Andrew.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But you think the President should be weighing in on a transaction like that, I guess is the question. Sorry, should the President be weighing in on—
SCOTT BESSENT: Well, but you’re not saying that he weighed in.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: He hasn’t yet.
SCOTT BESSENT: You aren’t saying whether he’s weighed in on Paramount, Warner Brothers.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: What I’m suggesting, you’re saying he could.
SCOTT BESSENT: Let’s go back to the word.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: We’re back to “could.” We’re back to—but that’s why, arguably. Look, my understanding is Paramount passed on making that film originally. So one of the reasons that you’re seeing lots of companies do lots of things is to attempt in their own way to curry some favor with this administration.
SCOTT BESSENT: Enter the defense prime, spend $200 million a year on lobbying.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I understand, but—and the question is this. You put this in the lobbying context.
SCOTT BESSENT: Sorry. Could be.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And you think that’s—but I guess the question is, how should this—is this a new normal?
Media Coverage and Presidential Health
SCOTT BESSENT: Andrew, there’s no new normal. And, you know, I can tell you that I actually don’t read the New York Times anymore, but sometimes I do watch CNBC. But, you know, occasionally people send me articles and, like, there’s just this fever swamp. And, you know, you’re now a pop historian with 1929.
And, you know, in 20, 30, 40, 50 years, the New York Times is no longer the paper of record. You can’t go, you know, “I read this article like, President Trump is slowing down President Trump’s mineral capacity.” It is 100% fake. That, like, he only called me twice at 2 in the morning last week instead of three times.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You’re saying he called you. I believe that he called you at 2 or 3 in the morning.
SCOTT BESSENT: Like that whole narrative. And this is why people—this is why young people are going to TikTok. You know this story, Mike, like somebody sent it to me. Mike Johnson is believer that he and his wife were so tired they gave actually a very sympathetic and funny interview that somehow got twisted on the pages of the New York Times. You know, it’s just—
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let me say this though, just if I could, I think that what’s happening here, and I will just defend that article for a moment, not because I had nothing to do with it, but I think part of it is if you remember, the media, including the Times and others, got criticized for not raising more issues around the health of Joe Biden. Remember this?
And by the way, we did actually on this stage with the vice president United States back then. But nonetheless, I think there was a lot of criticism about that. And so I think there’s now a renewed sense that given people’s age that we should be doing more in that space. I don’t want to overstate it, it’s not something I wrote, but I’m just trying to—
SCOTT BESSENT: You had what was the greatest, one of the greatest scandals of all time that the coverage of the Biden administration, Joe Biden’s diminished capacity and the cover-up.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And that’s why—
SCOTT BESSENT: Was the New York Times. We just had a three-hour cabinet meeting yesterday, Andrew. For ten months the Biden administration did not have a cabinet meeting. How are you going to invoke the 25th Amendment if the cabinet secretaries never see the president, which they didn’t?
That, you know, I hear from people in the treasury building that I see President Trump more in a day than my predecessor saw Joe Biden in half a year.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: So I’m not taking the position one way or the other. I’m just saying I think it’s a fair question to at least raise.
SCOTT BESSENT: Well. I think this is why you just wrote a book. People in 20, 30, 40, 50 years deserve to know what really happened as opposed to, you know, again, people sending these stories from the New York Times. And the headlines are not that different than the Daily Beast and the HuffPost.
Trump Accounts: Building a Shareholder Economy
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let’s end this conversation on a subject that I think everybody on a bipartisan basis can probably agree upon, which is that yesterday you announced what is called the Trump accounts and Michael Dell and his wife gave $6.25 billion to these accounts.
And these accounts are going to go to children starting in July all across the country. What does that ultimately look like? And this is really one of the first sort of private public efforts because it’s all going to be run by the Treasury. And I think your goal ultimately is to get philanthropists across the country to effectively give money through the treasury to young Americans.
SCOTT BESSENT: Yeah, I think that this is the beginning of a shareholder economy. If we look, 12% of Americans own 80—I think it’s 88% of equities. And then if you go down to the fifth, the balance—10% of Americans own 88% of the equities. And then the balance if you go down to 50, the other 12%. And that’s mostly through 401(k)s.
You know what we’re seeing now, we’ve seen this asset appreciation in America. You either have assets or you don’t. And I think that this is an opportunity for the American people, for everyone to have a stake in the system, for everyone to be a shareholder.
So for the next five years, every child who was born in the U.S. will get a $1,000 account that will be invested in the S&P. They cannot access until they’re 18. So they will see the power of compounding. We are going to have, via Treasury, a huge amount of financial literacy.
And I think that again, when you see that people have a stake in the system, they don’t want to bring the system down. The second component of that is Americans are the most generous and giving people in the history of the world. And there has never been a vehicle for them to be able to give directly to American children.
So this incredible gift that Susan and Michael Dell are giving, they’re actually not doing it for the children who are going to be born. They’re doing it retroactively. And the $6.25 billion is going to work out to about $250 per account for children from the past 10 years.
But I believe that we are going to see this incredible outpouring into these accounts. And we now have the greatest fortunes in the history of America. And this is the chance that because this had been talked about for a long time and President Trump insisted on it being included in the one big beautiful bill, that this is the opportunity for philanthropists, for finance, for foundations and for corporates to contribute to all the American children.
And you’re going to be able to do it. You could do a school district, you could do a zip code, you could do a state. During the GFC, there was a panic among the billionaire class that people were going to come at them with pitchforks. So they did the Giving Pledge.
And the Giving Pledge, while well intentioned, was very amorphous. And now this is concrete. This is Michael and Susan saying $6.25 billion. And I think we’re going to see that. I think we’re going to see people adopt states. I think we’re going to see the school districts and that children and families are going to be able to check on their phone that this is my piece of the American dream.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you. We are out of time. I could talk to you for a much longer time and there are so many more questions. We appreciate you being here.
SCOTT BESSENT: Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you.
Related Posts
