Scott Bessent Is a Political Hack. Treasury Can’t Survive That.

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Scott Bessent Is a Political Hack. Treasury Can’t Survive That.

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Hosts: JVL and Tim Miller
Date: December 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bulwark Takes is a critical reaction to recent public remarks by Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury, focusing on his interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin. JVL and Tim Miller scrutinize Bessent’s performative, partisan style, question his ability to serve as a credible technocrat during financial crises, and warn about the dangers of political hacks occupying top economic roles. The conversation is both sharply critical and darkly humorous as the hosts grapple with the implications for America’s financial leadership.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Scott Bessent’s Interview: Performance Over Substance

  [02:00–05:10]

• JVL and Tim Miller play and react to a clip of Scott Bessent’s recent interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin.
• Bessent downplays his engagement with the New York Times, deflects criticism with partisan jabs, and insists youth get news from TikTok due to media “bias.”
• Both hosts see this as mimicking Trump’s antagonistic media stance, but without the charisma or authenticity.

Notable Exchanges:

• JVL: “He doesn't even read the New York Times anymore. And the bias of the paper is why the kids, the utes, get their news from TikTok.” [05:02]
• Tim Miller: “Maybe he should be reading. Probably help him to read the news, I would think, in his job. Like, this is obviously a performance act... And Scott Bessant and J.D. Vance are just condescending pricks with no sauce.” [05:10]

2. Bessent’s Political Motivation—Why Act Like This?

  [06:35–07:24]

• The hosts compare Bessent’s act to political figures like JD Vance, noting the difference: Vance has clear ambitions, Bessent, as a technocrat, doesn't need to be performative.
• JVL: “He is not a political animal. He's never sort of been involved in politics at high levels before... He thinks it'll make Trump happy. Right. But also, why does he need Trump to be happy?” [07:06]
• They connect this to Trump’s age and the administration’s preference for show over substance—highlighting the President’s reduced schedule and the theatrics of frequent cabinet meetings.

3. The Dangers of Having a Political Hack as Treasury Secretary

  [11:41–14:29]

• The hosts critique Bessent's dismissive, smug attitude and his attempt to use misleading stats to score partisan points about inflation.
• JVL argues that while some cabinet positions can survive partisan hacks, Treasury is not one of them: “There are positions in the federal government where you can have absolute hacks, total political hacks, who everybody knows lies all the time and nobody trusts them and it's basically okay... The most important is probably treasury.” [12:19]
• In times of crisis, credibility is paramount—if markets can’t trust Treasury, the consequences could be catastrophic.

4. The Fed Chair Succession—Nightmare Scenario

  [16:56–18:32]

• Jerome Powell’s term as Fed Chair is expiring soon. Trump has claimed he knows his next pick; Bessent is mentioned as a possible (and deeply troubling) replacement.
• The hosts explain the real-world, global stakes: the Fed Chair is among the most powerful posts in the world, and installing a nakedly partisan figure would represent a historic break from tradition.
• JVL: “It could contribute to really, like unwinding the American financial system as we have known it... It's just, man, it's a good thing we have three more years of this.” [18:32]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Tim Miller: “Trump is crazy and irresponsible and it's gross, but it kind of, it feels natural... And Scott Bessant and J.D. Vance are just condescending pricks with no sauce. And they think that they can like, borrow some of Trump's sauce...” [05:24]

• JVL: “If Hank Paulson had been this guy and he had come out and tried to reassure markets... Markets need to be able to trust the things they say and to have the treasury secretary... nobody can trust a word he says. He's like the biggest, worst political...” [13:02]

• JVL (on Bessent as possible Fed Chair): “I mean, I don't think we've ever had a nakedly political hack as Fed chair, like, that's not the job. And man, like, again, just the damage that can be done by having some... who's just going to say, oh, well, Mr. Trump wants me to cut rates, I guess we'll cut rates.” [17:18]

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:00–02:00: Advertisements and introduction (skipped for summary)
• 02:00–05:10: Recap and reaction to Scott Bessent’s interview, media criticism
• 05:10–08:42: Discussion of Bessent’s motives and difference from other MAGA figures
• 10:08–12:49: Reaction to Bessent's economic claims and attitude, critique of his handling of policy questions
• 12:49–16:56: Why Treasury can't be led by a hack, dangers during financial crises, inflation talking points
• 16:56–18:32: The risk of Bessent or similar figures becoming Fed Chair, potential systemic consequences
• 18:32–End: Closing remarks and sign-off

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Tone & Takeaway

The tone is caustic, exasperated, and sometimes darkly funny, laced with genuine concern over the implications of political hacks running the nation’s financial apparatus. JVL and Tim Miller provide a blend of in-the-weeds policy discussion and accessible, pointed critique, warning that the integrity and credibility needed in top economic roles are dangerously absent in the current administration’s choices.

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For more sharp-tongued, sobering political analysis, Bulwark Takes urges listeners to subscribe and follow along as the news cycle continues to unfold.

Transcript

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[JVL]

Hello everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend at the Bulwark Tim Miller. And this morning the secretary of these United States treasury sat down Mr. Scott Besant with Besant. Besant. Besant.

Sat down with the great Aaron Ross Sorkin at a a New York Times. One of the things they do and.

Boy it was something here it is.

[Tim Miller]

Was it I'm, I'm going in blind. You told me that it was so good that I just we gotta watch it together live. I want people to be able to see my natural facial reaction because they know my views on you know he's not my favorite. Let's just say Mr. Mr. Stuff.

[Andrew Yang]

He surety this a new normal that 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 sending send me articles and like there's just this fever swamp and you know you're, 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 like 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.

[Scott Bessant]

Times you're saying he called you. I believe that he called you at 2 or 3 in the morning.

[Andrew Yang]

Like that whole narrative and this is why people like this is why young people are going to tick tock. You know this story might like somebody sent it to me. Mike Johnson is believer that he and his wife are so tired they gave actually a very sympathetic and funny interview that somehow got twisted on the pages of New York Times. This you know it's just let me.

[Scott Bessant]

Say this just if I could I think that what is 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. You 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.

[Andrew Yang]

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 COVID up.

[Scott Bessant]

And that's why it's probably fair to raise these questions.

[Andrew Yang]

Where was the New York Times? We just had a three hour cabinet meeting yesterday, Andrew, for sleep.

[JVL]

During which he fell asleep. All right, that's enough. So this is only the first clip. We're going to listen to another clip in a minute. But Tim, he doesn't even read the New York Times anymore. And the bias of the paper is why the kids, the utes, get their news from TikTok.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, maybe he should be reading. Probably help him to read the news, I would think, in his job. Like, this is obviously a performance act. It's one of those things, it's very JD Vance esque, where it's like, you know, we, they look at Trump and they say what this guy's secret sauce is, is that he doesn't take any guff from nobody. He's going to, you know, he always fights, he's going to make. He made these jokes, he makes fun of him. He calls him the enemy of the people. But like, Trump is crazy and irresponsible and it's gross, but it kind of, it feels natural. Like, it feels like Trump is. That's like the whole thing about Trump where, like, he's a liar, but it feels true. That's what his people do. Like, that works for him. Right. It's like when he's mad at them, he's really ma mad. And then he's making jokes are kind of funny. And, and Scott Besant and J.D. vance are just condescending pricks with no sauce. And they think that they can like, borrow some of Trump's sauce by going into these interviews and instead of engaging with the questions that are being asked by a smart, fair person like Andrew Ross Sorkin, it's. He's like, I'm just gonna attack the New York Times and. And then, you know, the MAGA chuds are gonna cheer for me and go, yay, Scott Besson. And it's like, no, it doesn't work. It's awkward. You seem weird. You seem like you're not interested in doing your job. And the attacks aren't even funny. It feels very defensive.

It's painful. It's painful to watch. Really.

[JVL]

It is painful to watch and it is gross. But here's the difference. So JD Vance does it because he wants the brass ring. Mm. He wants to be president. And so he is. I mean, he has two audiences. He has the audience of Trump, then the audiences of the. The maga.

[Tim Miller]

Uma.

[JVL]

Scott Besant is a technocrat. Like, what? He doesn't need to do this.

[Tim Miller]

This is happy. Yeah.

[JVL]

He thinks it'll make Trump happy. Right. But also, why does he need Trump to be happy? I mean, he's just it, right? He's just the Secretary of the Treasury. Like, he's not. He is not a political animal. He's never sort of really been involved in politics at high levels before. And. And that gets us to the next piece.

[Tim Miller]

Well, just really quick for the next piece. It also gets us to the cabinet meeting that he referenced, which is just so hilarious. Right? Which is like, you don't know how Trump hasn't lost a step.

[JVL]

We did this yesterday's cabinet meeting where.

[Tim Miller]

He dozed off multiple times. And I was talking to Jonathan Lemire about this for the pod today. And it's like part of the reason why they're having so many of these cabinet meetings now is because it's like an easy way for Trump to be out there. Right? Like, Trump is getting old and tired. Like, he's not traveling the country like he was doing the first time. Like, if all I used to do is just take off his slippers and, you know, put on his orange face and like, look at him walking, walking.

[JVL]

Down the hall last week.

[Tim Miller]

Shuffle down. Yeah, shuffle down to the cabinet room and then listen to people telling how great he is for three hours. Like, that is what you do. For an old guy that wants to.

[JVL]

Be out there, that's harder than any of us. Tim. I saw him bench press a wolf. He is the strongest, most perfect physical specimen any of us have ever seen. Actually, Pete Hegseth be funny. Somebody ought to put Pete Higseth on the spot and say, Mr. Secretary of War, can you do more push ups than Donald Trump, President Trump? And watch Pete, like, try to figure out, wait a minute, how do I.

[Tim Miller]

That is a good question for our new DoD press corps.

[JVL]

Anyway, let's. Let's go to the next clip.

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[Scott Bessant]

You've been talking about is that the regional presidents you think actually are not as independent unto themselves that you want.

[Andrew Yang]

Well, no, I think when I, when I was on Squat 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. I mean in a blue state, affordability is worse than a blue state.

[Scott Bessant]

We can debate that.

[Andrew Yang]

But there's no debate that the number 50 basis points higher inflation, the, the 10 highest the inflation rates, they are in blue cities.

[Scott Bessant]

But.

Just so you know, because I went to look at this. This is the joint Economic Committee 2000. Since 2021, the highest inflation of the past four years has been in red states, especially Florida.

[Andrew Yang]

I'm talking about current, current, current.

[Scott Bessant]

Not over the past four years.

[Andrew Yang]

Right. Today.

[Scott Bessant]

Okay.

Today versus four years would be a reasonable.

Trend line to look at today.

[Andrew Yang]

Today it is 50 basis points higher. So anyway, and look that people are voting with their feet. I have the American people on my. So that New York, Illinois.

[JVL]

Yes, Scott, the American people are on your side.

[Tim Miller]

Before we get to the substance, because I want to hear your take on the substance. This shavel. You follow this stuff a little closer than me. I want to be a figure skating judge for a second. The way he sits like it's just.

Like sit up in your fucking chair if you're going to do an interview. You know, he's just like, oh, oh. It's just, it's. He's such a prissy condescending prick. Like it's. He's so unappealing. Anyway, he's also wrong. And you would think that if you're going to be condescending, you should at least be articulate when you're talking down to your counterparty and his.

[JVL]

Yeah, I mean his response, which is like no, no, no, no, the. Well, I mean for the last 10 hours the inflation rates have been up. Here's the problem. And this is why I get a little bit upset about this. There are positions in the federal government where you can have absolute hacks, total political hacks, who everybody knows lies all the time and nobody trusts them and it's basically okay.

[Tim Miller]

Not like the Commerce Department.

[JVL]

Commerce. If the Secretary of the Interior is like that, so be it. There are supposed to be like four.

Probably four cabinet positions where the public needs to be able to trust the secretaries in case there's a crisis. And of those, the most important is probably treasury. Because if you wind up in a financial crisis and things are going to hell like we had in 2008, if Hank Paulson had been this guy and he had come out and tried to reassure markets and said, okay, we understand that Bear Stearns collapsed and we allowed Bear Stearns to go down, but we are rescuing Lehman Brothers and we are laying down a marker that we will also rescue anybody else who needs it and we're going to stop this contagion now. Markets need to be able to trust the things they say and to have the treasury secret like we can get along. Everything is fine having this absolute moron as Secretary of the treasury so long as there's no crisis. But if you wind up in a crisis where a the President, the Secretary of treasury and the Chairman of the Fed, what they say and their standing within the financial community is incredibly important because people need to be able to trust their representations. And Besant, nobody can trust a word he says. He's like the biggest, worst political.

It's like he's some backbench Republican congressman from fucking Oklahoma or something.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, or like he's working for some dumb think tank. Right wing think tank. This job is to spin for the administration. Right? And yeah, no, if there's a crisis, you do think you'd want the Secretary of Treasury to be like reading the news. That's the other thing where like the joke doesn't really work. It's like, I don't know, I don't read the fake news. I'm like a Secretary of treasury during the next financial crisis will only be getting his News from Matt Gaetz at oan. You know, it's like, well, that's not really what we're Fox Business. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll turn over to Fox Business, see what they're saying. Yeah, man. Also, he's been trotting this little thing out for a little bit.

This whole like the inflation is worse in red states. I'm going to trust Andrew Rossorkin's data on this. He's a database journalist. But even if he was right, even if you look at the 10 week inflation status and it's been really bad in Blue states by 50 basis points. It's like A, regular people don't know what a basis point is and B, they have real bills. Okay. So if their inflation, if inflation is going up in their state, you know, 0.5% more than in another state, it is not a solve to their problem to do the most expensive thing that like a working class family can do.

[JVL]

Which is at least it's worse for somebody in Manhattan.

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Right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

It's like okay, West Virginia and things are more expensive at the Piggly Wiggly. It doesn't, not shouldn't make you feel, although maybe it does make you feel better to have Scott Bessant telling you that, well, don't worry, the libtards are getting it worse.

[Tim Miller]

They're going to get a little worse. Yeah. But the other thing is like oh, the thing that you should do then to resolve this is you should move from Connecticut to whatever, South Carolina.

[JVL]

It's like where there are no jobs.

[Tim Miller]

Like that's going to cost a lot more by the way than like the extra two bucks I'm paying on the, so the whole, the whole argument is stupid. He's been working on it for a month and these guys just, they, they're not, I don't, if the economy gets worse, I don't know that they know how to handle it. It's, I don't think that there's any way that they are going to be able to manage, be able to successfully manage themselves through a recessionary type situation because of the, just the premise of how Donald Trump and Scott Besson act in such situations.

[JVL]

Which brings me to my financial sum of all fears, which is that Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed, his term expires soon. Trump has said he already knows who he's going to appoint.

[Tim Miller]

Might be this guy.

[JVL]

Could be this guy. It could be Kevin Hassett.

[Tim Miller]

Idiot.

[JVL]

I mean, I don't think we've ever had a nakedly political hack as Fed chair, like, that's not the job. And man, like, again, just the damage that can be done by having some. If it's one of these guys as chairman of the Fed who's just going to say, oh, well, Mr. Trump wants me to cut rates, I guess we'll cut rates.

My God.

[Tim Miller]

And yeah, again, for people who like that, you know, isn't exactly their cup of tea. Just kind of following how this stuff works. And the fedship world, the financial markets, like I was one of these memes is going around the past few days. If people suffer through social media like me, they might have seen it where it's like the 20 most powerful jobs in the world. And it's like it's an engagement bait to get people to, you know, discuss what they think. Like, the Fed chair job on those lists was like 4, 6, 7. Because they have actual meaningful responsibilities. And. And replacing Jerome Powell with somebody like this dude, I could have very real ramifications in a way that putting a hack really. The jobs don't.

[JVL]

Yeah, I mean, it could contribute to really, like unwinding the American financial system as we have known it and the way in which the government and central bank relate to one another and how all other financial markets treat the dollar and the American economy. It's just, man, it's a good thing we have three more years of this. Tim, thanks for coming on to talk about our boy Scott Bessant. If you want more super uplifting Sunnyside takes like this, hit like hit subscribe, follow the channel. It helps us out a lot more than you can imagine. Tim, it's good to see you. Everybody else, good luck, America. Catch you next time.