Scott Bessent

Well, look, I think it goes back to something that's unsustainable is unsustainable. And one of the reasons I'm sitting here now is about 18 months ago, I went to see President Trump. I'd known the Trump family for 30 years.

Well, look, I think it goes back to something that's unsustainable is unsustainable. And one of the reasons I'm sitting here now is about 18 months ago, I went to see President Trump. I'd known the Trump family for 30 years.

I'd never known the president that well, but to tell him that I wanted to get involved in the campaign because I was so alarmed with what the Biden administration was doing with the debt and deficit.

I'd never known the president that well, but to tell him that I wanted to get involved in the campaign because I was so alarmed with what the Biden administration was doing with the debt and deficit.

Endless spending, but endless spending when we were in solid economic territory, or not in a war, first time ever, and I thought it was very cynical, because I actually thought, well, we're gonna spend, spend, spend, and then there'll be no choice but to raise taxes.

Endless spending, but endless spending when we were in solid economic territory, or not in a war, first time ever, and I thought it was very cynical, because I actually thought, well, we're gonna spend, spend, spend, and then there'll be no choice but to raise taxes.

So you'd go into this equilibrium that you could just never get out of, and you become kind of a European-style social democracy, the malaise. And I also think they were very cynical on immigration, because if you take the stated number, 12 million, the president's number, 22 million, I don't know what the truth is, kind of lean toward the president.

So you'd go into this equilibrium that you could just never get out of, and you become kind of a European-style social democracy, the malaise. And I also think they were very cynical on immigration, because if you take the stated number, 12 million, the president's number, 22 million, I don't know what the truth is, kind of lean toward the president.

But it was, oh, we're going to let all these people cross the border. You can't ever make them. Problem's too big to make them go home. But I like to stay in my finance lane. So the finance lane was, we're going to just go to the point of no return and kind of inflict these... progressive financial values on the country, there'll be no way out.

But it was, oh, we're going to let all these people cross the border. You can't ever make them. Problem's too big to make them go home. But I like to stay in my finance lane. So the finance lane was, we're going to just go to the point of no return and kind of inflict these... progressive financial values on the country, there'll be no way out.

Well, it was always there, and you had these distributional aspects, because back to your question of Wall Street versus Main Street, that it was driving me crazy when Vice President Harris said, I'm going to fight for the middle class, and she'd eviscerated the middle class. Or these policies, inadvertent, intentional, had eviscerated the middle classes and really the bottom 50%.

Well, it was always there, and you had these distributional aspects, because back to your question of Wall Street versus Main Street, that it was driving me crazy when Vice President Harris said, I'm going to fight for the middle class, and she'd eviscerated the middle class. Or these policies, inadvertent, intentional, had eviscerated the middle classes and really the bottom 50%.

So we're in this.

So we're in this.

if you didn't have assets.

if you didn't have assets.

Not only did... inflation go up but if you look uh jason trinnert has this thing i think he calls it the everyman index and um so cpi went up about 22 during the period but the everyman index was up over 30 35 because the the bottom 25%, the bottom 50% of wage earners have a different basket than we do. And it inflated much faster. Use car prices were up. Car insurance.

Not only did... inflation go up but if you look uh jason trinnert has this thing i think he calls it the everyman index and um so cpi went up about 22 during the period but the everyman index was up over 30 35 because the the bottom 25%, the bottom 50% of wage earners have a different basket than we do. And it inflated much faster. Use car prices were up. Car insurance.

Car insurance, rent, groceries. And not only is it unfair, but it's just unstable.

Car insurance, rent, groceries. And not only is it unfair, but it's just unstable.