Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was called out after he subtly threatened Meet the Press host Kristen Welker for pressing him on a potential recession after he claimed he's "not worried" about the recent stock market drops.
During their interview, Bessent told Welker he can't "guarantee" there won't be a recession:
"You know there are no guarantees. Who would have predicted COVID? So, I can predict that we are putting in robust policies that will be durable and, could there be an adjustment."
"Because I tell you this massive government spending that we've had—that if that had kept going, we have to wean our country off of that and on the other side we are going to invigorate the private sector."
You can hear what he said in the video below, with his talk of a recession starting at the 6:59 mark.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Following those remarks, Bessent appeared on Fox Business in an attempt to ease concerns about the economy and was asked the following question by anchor Maria Bartiromo:
“The other day, you were asked a question by another outlet: Can you guarantee that we’re not going to have a recession? And you wanted to address that this morning.”
Bessent did respond to Bartiromo's question—but he also criticized Welker's line of questioning before subtly threatening that she'd one day be taken off the air:
“Yeah. Well, look, it was a silly question. Can you guarantee there is not going to be a recession? I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee that the journalist who asked me the question that her news program is going to be on in a year."
“But, what I can guarantee you is that there is no reason we need to have a recession."
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Everyone heard what he said—and promptly criticized him for threatening a journalist who was merely doing her job.
Bessent went on to defend the state of the economy while criticizing the media for what he claimed was a lack of attention to its strengths.
"The economy in the first quarter is doing better than the media is reporting," he argued, pointing to encouraging data from financial institutions. He suggested that even the "bad passenger numbers" reported by airlines were largely due to a drop in travel among federal employees rather than a broader economic issue.
Despite some concerns, Bessent insisted that "the underlying economy is healthy" and saw "no reason we have to have a recession." He acknowledged the possibility of a "pause" in growth but framed it as a necessary adjustment to curb government spending, referring to this as "unsustainable."
Ultimately, he credited the Trump administration with averting what he described as an impending crisis—though the actual facts surrounding President Donald Trump's ongoing trade war went conveniently unmentioned as he predicted that "we are going to get this spending under control," along with efforts to boost domestic manufacturing and "make the country more affordable for working Americans."
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