After two weeks of uncertainty, Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent, a longtime Wall Street investor, as his next Treasury secretary. The pick capped a behind-the-scenes battle one advisor called a “knife fight.” WSJ’s Andrew Restuccia takes us inside the decision, explores why Bessent triumphed and unpacks what his tenure could mean for the U.S. economy. Further Reading: -How Scott Bessent Won the ‘Knife Fight’ to Be Trump’s Treasury Secretary -Scott Bessent Sees a Coming ‘Global Economic Reordering.’ He Wants to Be Part of It. Further Listening: -Gaetz, Bondi and Trump's Department of Justice -The Scramble Is on to Fill Trump's Cabinet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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During his campaign, one of President-elect Donald Trump's top issues was the economy.
Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe have driven our economy off a cliff. The Harris price hikes have cost the typical household $28,000. Congratulations. Hope everyone's happy. I'm going to make America affordable again. In addition to making it great again, we're going to make it affordable again.
Trump promised big changes by levying tariffs, cutting taxes, and deregulating parts of the economy. Which is why, as Trump has named his cabinet picks over the past few weeks, our colleague Andrew Restuccia has been watching for one role in particular.
Yeah, we've been sort of chasing our tails over the last few weeks, trying to figure out what the president is going to do before he does it. But this is a big one for us. On Friday, the president-elect announced that he was going to pick Scott Besant to run the Treasury Department.
Scott Besant. He's a 62-year-old hedge fund manager from South Carolina. And unlike some of Trump's other cabinet nominations, this one took some time.
There were plenty of other decisions that happened quickly. The defense secretary, the attorney general, big positions that happened in just a matter of days. The fact that this took more than two weeks says a lot about the political importance of the economy for Trump. I mean, he knows that this is one of the issues that sunk Biden and then later Harris.
And he knows his political fortunes are really tied up in it.
Right. And the treasury secretary is key to making his economic promises happen.
The Treasury Secretary, if Besson is confirmed, will be at the center of the entire economic agenda for the president-elect. He has made the economy kind of the centerpiece of his political campaign, and the Treasury Secretary will be at the center of all that. And whether he succeeds or fails will, of course, be at the feet of the president, but will also really be at the feet of Scott Besson.
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