Scott Besant

I'd expected that we would here have a decision either before he leaves for Davos or when he returns.

We've run a process and it will be the president's decision in the next couple of days or weeks.

I'd expected that we would here have a decision either before he leaves for Davos or when he returns.

In a video announcement, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said previous sanctions have successfully pressured Iran by slowing the economy.

However, he added these new sanctions target sanction evasion.

The protests started at the end of December in response to the collapse of the country's currency, but grew to be more broadly against the country's authoritarian leadership.

Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News, the White House.

Today's sanctions target 18 individuals and entities that the regime uses to evade sanctions on Iranian oil and divert proceeds from its energy sales away from the rightful owners, the Iranian people.

The economy has been better than we thought.

We've had 4% GDP growth in a couple of quarters.

We're going to finish the year despite the Schumer shutdown with 3% real GDP growth.

Well, Margaret, inflation is a composite number and it's roughly the same year over year.

And if we were to look at all imported goods, imported goods inflation is below the inflation number, which is about

2.9%.

Imported goods inflation is about 1.8.

It's the service economy that's generating inflation, which actually has nothing to do with tariffs.

Mr. Secretary, a lot of people are out there holiday shopping.

Here is how the president described back in April what to expect from this season.

Was the president's prediction then correct?

The president was wrong to predict lower numbers of purchases and higher prices.