Treasury secretaries for decades have been careful to avoid partisan public remarks, fearing that overt political wrangling could undermine their credibility in the eyes of global investors and foreign leaders.
Then there is Scott Bessent.
President Donald Trump’s combative treasury secretary in recent days has attacked prominent Democrats by name on social media, described inflation as largely a blue state problem, and lampooned three Democratic governors as “Grinches” and “radical leftists” suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The jousting shows that compared to his predecessors in both parties, Bessent is unusually eager to engage in partisan combat. He attended the president’s campaign-style rally in Pennsylvania this month, an unusual move for a treasury secretary. In a recent appearance at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, he responded to questions about Trump administration practices with gibes about Barack Obama and Hunter Biden, the son of another former Democratic president, and echoed his boss’s attacks on the press, claiming that he no longer reads the Times.
Once described in a magazine profile as “the least MAGA-afflicted of all of Trump’s top officials,” Bessent in recent months has emerged as an unapologetic political brawler on behalf of the Make America Great Again movement. The secretary’s aggressiveness has won him presidential praise as “our savior,” but left traditionalists grumbling.
“There’s a standard of decorum that’s traditionally applied to the treasury secretary that they are ignoring completely. That’s par for the course for the Trump administration,” said one veteran of past Republican administrations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “But it’s particularly jarring when it comes to the Cabinet officer who most presidents have wanted to keep out of politics.”
The concern extends beyond manners. As steward of the nation’s finances, the treasury secretary occupies a sensitive position. His or her words can cause global markets to tremble, affect the value of the dollar and the cost of federal borrowings, and thus influence what consumers and businesses pay for loans.
Treasury chiefs have stood apart from politics so that they can better work with lawmakers in the opposition party on critical financial issues, including the budget, taxes and the national debt. The need for such bipartisan ties could grow if Democrats win one or both houses of Congress in 2026.
Good relations across the aisle also are essential in a crisis: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson worked closely with congressional Democrats to stave off financial collapse in 2008 and Steven Mnuchin in Trump’s first term did likewise to develop pandemic aid programs.
Bessent’s strikingly different approach reflects his own personality; his experience in the financial industry, where dominant personalities thrive and the meek get bulldozed; and the Trump team’s enthusiasm for shattering norms. His blunt, occasionally slashing commentary, however unusual in the normally staid treasury post, is not out of place in Trump’s Cabinet.
“In the MAGA community, including in the Oval Office, that type of combative, undignified rhetoric is rewarded,” said economist Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute.
Bessent’s behavior drew notice this year when on two occasions he reportedly challenged administration colleagues to a fistfight over policy disputes. In September, he threatened to punch William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, after accusing Pulte of bad-mouthing him to the president. Months earlier, Bessent and sometime presidential adviser Elon Musk got into a White House tussle over control of the Internal Revenue Service.
“The markets strongly disagree with any assertion that Secretary Bessent is a partisan actor. Throwing rocks from inside a glass house is ill-advised, and given the consistently absurd left-wing partisanship of The Washington Post it is no surprise that Jeff Bezos has had to waste hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to save this rapidly sinking ship,” the Treasury Department said through a spokesperson after declining to provide an on-the-record comment.
This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former Treasury officials, financial professionals and Washington analysts, including many who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the Trump administration.
To be sure, treasury secretaries have often had political backgrounds. Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first chief financial officer, came to the post after helping draft the U.S. Constitution and later founded the Federalist Party, the nation’s first political party.
But perhaps not since former Texas governor John Connally held the job during the Nixon administration has a treasury secretary been as politically garrulous.
“Bessent has been more publicly outspoken and supportive of the president’s policies in a more frontal way than most treasury secretaries have been,” said Ian Katz, managing partner of Capital Alpha, a Washington research group. “I think he is very aware that he needs to please the president, but also at the same time not say things that spook the market.”
Bessent made history in January when he was sworn in as the nation’s first gay treasury secretary. He grew up in modest circumstances in South Carolina before graduating from Yale University and pursuing a career in investing.
He notched his first big score advising George Soros on a massive 1992 currency market bet against the British pound, which earned Soros Fund Management more than $1 billion. Colleagues remember him as a savvy financial analyst with no obvious political leanings.
“I don’t remember a partisan guy. He was interested in election results only as they would affect markets,” said David Smick, a Washington-based economic strategist who worked alongside Bessent.
He was less successful after twice leaving Soros to launch his own hedge fund. In 2000, he hosted a fundraiser for Al Gore, the Democratic Party candidate for president that year. But most of his political contributions went to Republican candidates.
By the spring of last year, he was a regular on Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, a leading outlet for MAGA voters. Asked about Bessent’s recent political commentary, Bannon, an ally, replied by text: “Not partisan enough. LOL.”
Bessent’s supporters explain today’s pugnacious style as a response to Democratic attacks and what he sees as a double standard in media coverage.
During the 2024 campaign, Bessent was irked when then-Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen gave a speech in Arizona on the economic benefits of democracy. He saw the remarks as a thinly veiled, and inappropriate, warning that returning Trump to the White House would usher in authoritarianism.
“He thinks she gets a free pass,” said one longtime financial industry associate.
At the Group of 20 finance ministers’ meeting in Brazil, just days after President Joe Biden quit the presidential race, Yellen praised his presumptive replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, in remarks that some press reports said skirted legal limits on Cabinet officers’ political involvement.
“Vice President Harris clearly, deeply understands what’s needed to make sure that families in America can thrive and can get ahead,” Yellen told reporters.
Bessent’s sense of grievance deepened in April, at a traditional dinner for the new treasury secretary hosted by several of his predecessors. Normally an evening of rarefied clubbiness, the night turned sour as some attendees, including Lawrence Summers, who held the job under President Bill Clinton, harshly — and in Bessent’s view — unfairly criticized the administration’s tariff plans, the associate said.
Bessent also has little patience for the routine political attacks that any prominent Cabinet officer receives. Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are among his most prominent antagonists, besieging his office with frequent requests for information and action.
Bessent this week criticized Wyden, and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, for earning outsize returns with their stock investments while serving in leadership positions in Congress.
He has derided Warren, perhaps his favorite target, as an American “Chavista,” suggesting she is a follower of the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. During the debate over the administration’s financial rescue of Argentina, which Warren opposed, Bessent called her “an American Peronist,” a reference to the Argentine ruler who claimed to champion the working class.
“Bessent should focus on bringing costs down for American families and ensuring Wall Street does not crash our economy once again,” Warren said through a spokeswoman.
Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, rejected what he called Bessent’s “personal attacks and unfounded accusations,” adding that he has been argumentative and thin-skinned in testimony before the panel.
“I had plenty of differences with Steven Mnuchin. But Mnuchin and I worked constructively on a lot of big stuff,” said Wyden, referring to covid aid legislation. “I’ve always gotten along with treasury secretaries — except this one.”
On Wall Street, executives largely disregard Bessent’s moonlighting in politics. Investors see the former hedge fund manager as a moderating influence on an unpredictable president. If Bessent’s public opining crosses a line that his predecessors respected, investors see it as an acceptable price for having one of their own advising Trump.
“There’s a very strong perception that Bessent is someone who says what he needs to say to ‘an audience of one’ and then will do what’s right,” said one hedge fund executive.
Even so, the secretary’s political cheerleading has started to leak into once anodyne Treasury Department documents. Traditionally dry economic summaries distributed to investors before auctions of government debt now double as political messaging, some investors said.
The November statement to the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, which advises government officials on technical aspects of debt sales, for example, concluded: “In just a short six months, the administration has made extensive progress to enact an agenda that will bring prosperity to all Americans.”
On social media, Bessent’s style is less dignified than his customary ramrod posture and polished appearance, which caused Trump to say at the Pennsylvania rally that he had emerged from “central casting.”
In a recent post on X, Bessent superimposed a red MAGA baseball cap on the children’s book character “Franklin the Turtle” to highlight a chart of bond market returns arranged by presidential term. The post drew criticism from some analysts as misleading, since bond prices often rise in response to economic weakness rather than strength.
https://t.co/BAMcNiMPr0 pic.twitter.com/etHI3XWN9R
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) December 5, 2025
Likewise, during an otherwise substantive speech last month to an annual New York treasury market conference, Bessent echoed Trump’s claim of a “landslide” win in the 2024 election, which he won by 1.5 percentage points. And in a recent Fox interview, Bessent parroted Trump’s exaggerated claim that “$20 trillion” in foreign investment already has flooded into the country this year.
“Folks on Wall Street and finance ministries around the world, they know that effusive praise and displays of loyalty are just table stakes for any Trump Cabinet officer,” said one former aide in a Republican White House. “What causes concern is when the treasury secretary makes public statements about the U.S. economy that are extremely partisan and factually untrue.”
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