Tension and Tirades Inside the U.S. Treasury

Scott Besent, the Secretary of the Treasury, plays a key role in managing the economy. But he's doing a lot more than that. He's been given a portfolio that no other modern-day Treasury has ever had. That's our colleague, Brian Schwartz. He is leading trade negotiations with China. He has become the point person on handling the economic policy side of the Iran War. We are going to economically expixiate this regime. He is a member of the Artificial Intelligence Task Force. He has also, of course, tried to deal with the bond market that's been in flux. And on top of that, the price and stability that you're seeing across the country. So that's a massive remit for a Treasury Secretary. And what is the actual job of the Treasury Secretary? Well, traditionally, the role is meant to be the tip of the spear for any administration on economic policy. That's the policy side. The political side, of course, is that he, whoever the Treasury Secretary is, usually becomes a face of the results of those economic policies heading into any election. When it comes to the economy, it's a complicated moment for the Trump administration. Many voters have indicated that they're unhappy, and the midterms are in a couple weeks. Meanwhile, inside Scott Besson's Treasury, tensions have been rising. The Wall Street Journal interviewed more than 30 former and current officials in the Department and in the wider administration, as well as close associates from Wall Street for an article published earlier this month. And it seems like what tracks from our reporting is that if the Secretary is under pressure from the White House of the President to do something, there is a very good chance that if it's not being done in the way the White House or the President told him to, he is going to take you on and lash out at you. But Treasury spokesman said Besson, quote, "Approaches the job with a deep sense of responsibility and urgency." He also said Besson, quote, "has high expectations of the United States Treasury's performance." Why doesn't matter what kind of boss Besson is inside the Treasury? Because it gives the glimpse into how he's being as this key ally of the President behind the scenes, and this is a key government official, leading government official, who's the voice and an architect of Trump's economic policies. And the way he goes about doing that is important, but the bottom line is why it's of interest. It's because it gives a glimpse into an agency that is so powerful and how it's run. Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Limbaugh, it's Monday, October 19th. Coming up on the show, the tension and turnover at Scott Besson's Treasury. When Trump won reelection, Besson was a top pick to be his Treasury Secretary. Besson came from Wall Street where he'd worked with George Soros and ran his own firm. In the job, Besson would oversee big areas of economic policy, things like taxes, the national debt, and issuing treasuries. And one of the things the President is highly attuned to is markets. Is Besson essentially the voice of the markets for the President? Yeah, I think the President certainly believes that, and I think that Wall Street believes that. I think that Wall Street looked, and in many cases continued to be fair to the Secretary, as kind of the voice of handling the markets, right? The thinking heading into the second term was the Treasury Secretary was going to be this kind of adult in the room for the President. Now, if the Secretary has made very clear that he is not there to manage the President, he is there to lay out his viewpoints on things, and if the President wants to roll with those concepts then fine. If not, then they move. They try different ideas some other time. Trump appears to trust Besson. They talk on the phone almost every day, according to Brian's reporting. And Trump keeps giving Besson more responsibilities. The President made a decision that the Treasury Secretary was going to be the key point on the negotiations between the United States and China when it comes to trade. Not the U.S. trade representative. No. It was going to be the Treasury Secretary, even today, the key point of contact on trade on the U.S. side between the United States and China is the Treasury Secretary. That's significant, which would lead someone to believe that Trump really likes this guy and trust him. Yes. Yes, he does. He is gay. The ultimate trust the President. No doubt. At the White House, Besson is known for taking strong positions against other Trump allies and appointees. One incident happened in April 2025. Besson got into a shouting match in the West Wing with Elon Musk, who was then heading Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk then advised the President working within the White House at times, tried to make changes to the Internal Revenue Service. Besson and Musk wound up in a face-to-face confrontation that got so bad the two men had to be separated. About five months later, Besson had another confrontation. This time it was with the administration's top housing official, Bill Polti, over allegations that Polti was undermining him with Trump. But he got into Polti's face at a private party in Washington, vocally to the point where other people at the party heard of this taking place. Besson later addressed his argument with Polti on CNBC. Treasury Secretary, dating back to Alexander Hamilton, have a history of doing. Besson's defenders, in and out of the administration, acknowledge he can be combative. But they argue his approach is an asset. So the Treasury Secretary's allies make it very clear that he's very demanding. They admit, Steve Bannon, from White House Chiefs for Out Loud, on the record with us, said that Besson has a temper. He said he has a trip wire. But that is by, in a way, designed, that he's taken this rough and tumble mentality from his Wall Street days, brought it to the Treasury, and it's made clear that if people are not following what the president wants, you can go. I just want to quote Steve Bannon here from your article. He says, "We've got a purpose and a mission here, and we're mission-oriented. I'm not interested in your feelings. If your feelings are hurt, I'm sorry. Get the. F out of here. Yes, correct. You did say that. Yes. In that comment, Bannon was describing Besson's attitude toward Treasury staff. How does Trump react to Besson's approach? Trump had clearly no issue with it. I mean, the president really liked how the secretary is kind of pretty tough on people reactionary to a degree where he's defending his own turf, and the president loves that type of behavior. He's always been into kind of seeing these fights play out. And I think for the secretary, it did definitely those battles did not hurt him at all. In fact, it seems to have raised his standing with the president. In April, during an event in Nevada, Trump joked about the secretary who was sitting next to him. Trump said he'd turned Besson into a, quote, "big star." He walks down the street and then people are screaming, "Scott, Scott, can we have your autograph?" I mean, what I did, I created a monster. He's a monster now that's terrible, but he's doing a great job, along with. Besson has become bolder, making unilateral decisions. And inside the department he's running, his temper has flared. That's next. Based on your reporting, what have people said about what it's like to work with Besson? It can be very difficult. He runs an extremely tight ship. People are often walking around the agency trying to determine how to approach him on things in order to avoid him getting frustrated and what they've done. you as angry at them and to avoid some sort of lashing out from him to them, that's become the culture under this Treasury Secretary kind of walking on eggshells, kind of walking on eggshells. You're preparing for giving him news, whether it's internal or public news that he is not going to like and he's yelling and getting very frustrated and taking on people in such a way that they define it as being angry at them. According to Brian's reporting, Bessent has shouted at staff for not moving fast enough to implement his ideas or to combat negative media coverage. In one moment last year, Bessent got so angry about the way his daily briefing book was organized that he picked up the binder full of papers and threw it at the wall, according to people familiar with the matter. Bessent denied the account. Meanwhile, there have been a number of high-level departures from the Treasury. One of those was John Hurley, the agency's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. One of his jobs was to look into financial fraud. At the start of this year, the administration was looking to investigate and did investigate allegations of fraud within the Somali community in Minnesota. Homeland Security is conducting what it calls a massive investigation into alleged fraud in Minnesota's Somali community. The agents are zeroing in on daycare centers and health clinics after a viral video touched off of Firestorm. The president says he doesn't want any Somalis living in the US after a few dozen were implicated in a COVID relief fraud case. The president made clear that he wanted the Treasury Department through the Treasury Secretary to take a lead role in that investigation. So that would land on John Hurley's desk. So in one meeting, John Hurley sits down with the secretary with other aid's present. As the words of how he wanted to do this come out of his mouth, the secretary just erupted it. Just erupted it. With the thinking that he was trying to drag his feet, slow walk, however you wanted to find it, this investigation. He wasn't doing enough. He wasn't going to go as far as what they, the secretary, the president of the White House wanted them to go. And he blew up at him. Bessent was so loud that staff working nearby could hear him according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Soon Hurley was out. He was reassigned to be ambassador to the organization for economic cooperation and development. Hurley said in a statement that he was aligned with Bessent on the Minnesota fraud probe. He said, quote, "Scott Bessent is a brilliant and fearless warrior for President Trump and the American people." Bessent has been bringing in his own allies, many of whom he worked with before, including the person who took on Hurley's duties, a man named Gene Lang. He was an advisor to the secretary when he was on Wall Street. The secretary brought him over as a counselor to the Treasury Department and he's been rotting, you know, doing those responsibilities ever since. And he comes from outside. Has Bessent brought in other people like him? Yes, so slowly but surely as these tensions have been kind of rolling through the Treasury Department, he's been bringing in various people. But while he is brought in some people, many have also left. Brian's reporting shows that staffers who cross Bessent have been sidelined or pushed out. And right now, several Senate confirmed roles remain vacant, like General Counsel and head of legislative affairs. When we started doing more and more reporting on this, it turned out that many of those people, the dozens of people who have left in historic fashion, some of them were, in fact, leaving because they just didn't want to deal with the Treasury's secretary and his methods any longer. According to the Wall Street Journal's reporting, Bessent's reputation as a challenging boss has made it difficult to fill key vacancies. Several potential recruits said they decided not to pursue job opportunities at the Treasury because they heard about Bessent's behavior. In response to questions about Bessent's behavior, a White House spokeswoman said, quote, "The level of professionalism and accountability Secretary Bessent has instilled Department-wide is one of the great accomplishments of this administration." And what has all of this stuff going on inside Treasury meant for Bessent's actual job of overseeing the economy? Well, the pressure is on now. You know, it's likely that he will be a face of the successes of the failures of these tasks that he's been given. If, in fact, the Treasury Secretary succeeds in strangling off a ran from the world using the tools of the Treasury Department to do that, well, he'll be looked favorably bad. But if things don't go well, if things continue to go in a bad direction with gas prices and other goods, that could become problematic in the next two years of Trump's second term. And we see inflation going up. Gas prices are up. There's pressure on rates now. Yeah. This is a tricky cocktail for the Treasury Secretary. Yes, it is. And these are things that they have to think about in dealing with almost on a weekly basis. And how about on Wall Street? Like, are there any signs that investors' confidence in him is being shaken? So what of the Secretary's mentors is Stanley Drunken Miller. Stanley Drunken Miller came out with an op-ed, criticizing Secretary Bessent's expansion of long-dated bond buybacks. And Drunken Miller, who has never at that point criticized the Secretary, comes forward with this very sharp critique of that move. And that was from our reporting, an indication of some on Wall Street starting to question some of the Secretary's moves. Two weeks later, Bessent spoke publicly about his approach to markets. I am the House now. The Treasury Secretary stood by his approach. You can bet against me if you want. Where does he stand with the President? Still in his good grace is the zero indication that the Eddie reporting or any ways that he's handling the Treasury Department is a net negative on him on the Secretary. It's basically all things go. He remains in good standing with the President. What does this story show about how things are going inside the Trump administration? Well, I think there's tremendous pressure from the President's on down to to basically have an answer to the economy. I think there's tremendous pressure on everybody. And I think the Secretary is right in the middle of that. People in the administration, there are going to be the ones under pressure to make changes to things to try to fix this. And it's going to be a tall order for anyone in the administration to handle these problems. That's all for today. Monday, October 19th. The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in today's episode by Josh Dossie, Philip Wegman, and Gregory Zuckerman. It's so good to be back guest hosting for a day. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.