Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has upended decades of precedent while cozying up to Donald Trump.
Bessent, 63, has MAGA-ified what was once a traditionally non-partisan role, dozens of former and current Treasury officials warned in a Washington Post report published Sunday. The cabinet member has emerged as one of Trump’s top attack dogs, attending political rallies and going after his political enemies with words—and, at times, fists.
“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,” one former Republican administration official told the outlet.
“But it’s particularly jarring when it comes to the Cabinet officer who most presidents have wanted to keep out of politics.”
Bessent, who rose to prominence in MAGA as a guest on Steven Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, has amplified the president’s often misleading claims in a role that oversees domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policies.
For example, the secretary—who made history as the first openly gay man to hold the position—repeated Trump’s inaccurate claim that “$20 trillion” in foreign investment has already flooded into the country this year during a Fox News interview.
And in November, when defending inflation, the multimillionaire bizarrely told Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker: “I can tell you that the Council of Economic Advisers have studied. You know the best way to bring your inflation rate down? Move from a blue state to a red state.”
“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,” one former aide in a Republican White House told the Post. “What causes concern is when the treasury secretary makes public statements about the U.S. economy that are extremely partisan and factually untrue.”
Investors also told the Post that nonpartisan government memos they receive ahead of government auctions now include political messaging under Bessent.
“In just a short six months, the administration has made extensive progress to enact an agenda that will bring prosperity to all Americans,” one such document from November reportedly reads.
Like his boss, Bessent has also made plenty of political enemies among Democrats.
“I had plenty of differences with Steven Mnuchin. But Mnuchin and I worked constructively on a lot of big stuff,” Sen. Ron Wyden, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, told the Post, referring to Trump’s treasury secretary during his first term.
He added: “I’ve always gotten along with treasury secretaries—except this one.”
Bessent, who in the ’90s advised billionaire Trump foe George Soros on finances, also took aim at Sen. Elizabeth Warren after she told U.S. banks not to finance Trump’s massive financial support package for Argentina.
While she remains mostly focused on singing “Don’t Cry for Me Massachusetts” and voting against paying government workers, @SenWarren has somehow also found the recent bandwidth to threaten large banks on their lending policies.
She is an American Peronist. And the only thing… pic.twitter.com/KLAVVS4U34— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) October 24, 2025
“She is an American Peronist. And the only thing she enjoys more than wasting your tax dollars is our nation’s time,” Bessent wrote in a post on X viewed 2.4 million times, referring to an Argentine ruler who favored the working class.
“While she remains mostly focused on singing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Massachusetts’ and voting against paying government workers, @SenWarren has somehow also found the recent bandwidth to threaten large banks on their lending policies,” he added.
“Senator, come in off the balcony, stop raging against one of our great Latin American allies, and vote to reopen the government.”
In response, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts senator told the Post: “Bessent should focus on bringing costs down for American families and ensuring Wall Street does not crash our economy once again.”
Bessent’s foes aren’t limited to other political parties. In June, the South Carolina native made headlines for a West Wing brawl with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk that was broken up by several bystanders, according to reports at the time.
Months later, Bessent threatened to punch the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency in the face after hearing rumors that he was trash-talking him to the president.
“Why the f— are you talking to the president about me? F— you,” Bessent reportedly told the fellow Trump appointee, according to Politico. “I’m gonna punch you in your f—— face.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Treasury for comment. In a statement, a spokesperson told the Post: “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.”
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