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Treasury Sec'y Bessent Reported to be Freaking Out, May Quit [1]
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Date: 2025-04-05
Trump doesn’t like it when his cabinet and staff quit on him; it makes him look bad. His first term was notorious for the number of people who up and left. Maybe he thought that looking first for loyalty would save him the embarrassment this time around.
Well, maybe not. There are stories that his “loyal” Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, is seriously thinking about jumping ship over the tariffs Trump just unleashed on the world. Top Trump Official So Freaked Out by Tariffs, He Wants to Quit (The New Republic):
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent may be planning to cut and run after Donald Trump’s disastrous “reciprocal tariff” announcement earlier this week. During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Friday, contributor Stephanie Ruhle reported that the key Cabinet member is already looking for an escape hatch. “My sources say that Scott Bessent is kind of the odd man out here and, in the inner circle that Trump has, he’s not even close to Scott Bessent or listening to him,” Ruhle said. “Some have said to me, he’s looking for an exit door to try to get himself to the Fed, because in the last few days he’s really hurting his own credibility and history in the markets.”
The Daily Beast picked up on the story, with a bit more explanation. MSNBC Host: Trump’s Treasury Sec ‘Looking for an Exit Door’:
Ruhle suggested that Bessent, who built his $521 million fortune managing massive hedge funds, can’t stomach Trump’s “absurd tariff math,” which some critics have slammed as a “kindergarten-level understanding” of international trade. According to Ruhle’s sources, Trump is “not listening” to his treasury secretary, “the odd man out” in the president’s inner circle. She added, “[Bessent] actually understands how the markets work and, what’s happening right now, is only going to hurt markets.”
(The Italian paper La Repubblica also picked up the story, but I haven’t seen it yet in other European media.)
Bessent did try to defend the tariffs after Trump announced them, warning other countries not to retaliate. He must have known that wasn’t going to work; China wasted no time in doing just that.
Bessent is a hedge fund manager, and says he has actually taught history of financial crises, so he does have a claim to actual competence in the cabinet position he holds. I suspect that he, like so many on Wall Street, never believed Trump would actually do what he said he would do: spew tariffs across the world and do it so carelessly. Last month he defended what he thought would happen: Treasury Secretary Bessent says the American dream is not about ‘access to cheap goods’:
“To the extent that another country’s practices harm our own economy and people, the United States will respond. This is the America First Trade Policy,” he said.
But this is Trump; it has always been Trump. And nothing anyone, particularly anyone with any real expertise, can say to him is going to stop him. Even if that country is inhabited only by penguins. (That also has to embarrass Bessent, if he’s worried about hanging on to any credibility he has left.)
Any bets on how long Bessent lasts? And for that matter, will Marco Rubio last much longer at State? The look on his face as Vance scolded Ukraine’s president for being insufficiently obsequious sure reads to me like he would rather have been anywhere else (his later suck-up text notwithstanding).
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