SPECIAL REPORT: Trump Nominates Scott Bessent To Lead US Treasury

Published Nov 23, 2024, 12:49 AM

President-elect Donald Trump said he is nominating Scott Bessent, who runs macro hedge fund Key Square Group, as the next US Treasury Secretary, enlisting a key adviser to manage the sweeping economic agenda he has vowed to enact in a second term. Bloomberg Balance of Power hosts Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz offer instant reaction

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I'm Kaylee Lines alongside Joe Matthew. We have gotten confirmation of what Bloomberg had already reported. The President elect Donald Trump is nominating Scott besson of Key Square Group to be the Secretary of the Treasury. Donald Trump in his statement posted on True Social describing him as someone who has long been a strong advocate of the America First agenda.

Joe, we actually spent some time with the sixty two year old Scott Bessett right here at this table in Washington, d C. Kaylee, not that long ago when it was still unclear who was going to win the election, and of course since then we've heard any number of names bandied about. Scott Bessett has always been on the shortlist. We spent some time talking about his relationship with Donald Trump and what Donald Trump's relationship with the Federal Reserve will be.

Let's listen, here's a deep understanding of financial markets as opposed to most politicians. He wants to be involved in the conversation. He has very well formed opinions, is a lot of private sector friends, so he just wants to be a voice.

Just part of our conversation that touched on a lot of themes Kayley. One thing that Scott Bessont was able to do was to convince the markets, to convince the news media that this idea of combining tariffs and tax cuts could result in meaningful growth. This is an idea that has had many from the economists to market watchers here in Washington suggests that it could bring great deficits to Washington d C. Scott Besson has been very effective and arguing against that idea to the point where Donald Trump thought he was the messenger for this job.

Yeah, and it's going to remain to be seen to what extent it is Scott Besson's voice in the role of Treasury Secretary, if he is indeed confirmed for it, that will be the most defining or authorative on economic policy. Keeping in mind here that someone else who was in contention for this position, Howard Lutnik, has been named to be Secretary of Commerce, with according to the President elect, jurisdiction over trade and tariffs specifically, so how these departments will be working together in order to make Donald Trump's campaign agenda and actual reality is something we'll be watching here as well as those who will have yet to be named two top economic positions, including on the National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisors. In part, in the statement Donald Trump has just put out on True Social he has described that Besson's role will be about putting the US fully in a position of the world's leading economy and the center of innovation in entrepreneur He goes on to say that America will have the greatest economic boom, and the great people of the United States of America essentially will be benefiting from Scott Besson's Treasury secretary.

Well ensure that no Americans will be left behind the next and greatest economic boom. Glowing comments as you would expect from the President elect here talking about somebody, by the way, who is a They've spent a lot of time together talking about economic philosophy. Scott Bessont worked throughout the course of this campaign as an economic advisor to Donald Trump, and in fact helped to craft some of the speeches that were directed most specifically at the economy. Assuming that he has confirmed Kayley, we should also note the fact that he would be the first openly gay Treasury secretary in American history. As the seventy ninth secretary of the US Treasury.

Yeah, certainly historical, historically significant. And as you talk about this notion of friendship and having the ear of the president elect, someone else who does, as we've come to understand, is Elon Musk, who, actually, if we all recall, just days ago, wade in on the jockeying for Treasury and described Bessant as a business as usual choice. He was advocating for Howard Lutnik, but he said business as usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another. Clearly, Donald Trump has not sided with Elon Musk on this, as he is named Bessett now to be a Treasury secretary. But I wonder if business as usual is actually what financial markets will have been looking for. And we'll have to wait and see the reaction to this pick when futures open on Sunday Eason, that's for sure.

We have to wait till six pm on Sunday. Now, interesting timing how this all dropped. The markets will have the weekend to decipher this. We have seen, by the way, a bit of a drop in bitcoin, which is the one thing that we can kind of factor in. We talked a lot about though, the impact that immigration or the relationship that immigration has with our job market, and the impact that a mass deportation might have. Here's what Scott Besson had to say about it.

In this cycle, when we had the massive inflation we get, whether it's eleven million new arrivals or as President Trump thinks, twenty one million new arrivals, it does push down wages on the bottom quintile, which I think is abominable. These are working people Americans who are seeing their wages get pushed down.

But of course, as we consider the prospect of mass deportation of a lot of the economic policies, including around taxes that Donald Trump has talked about, it is not going to be entirely up to individuals like the President or the Secretary of the Treasury to actually enact those policy. There has to be a relationship here with Congress, who has authority over a lot of these monetary matters. So the relationship that Vessett will have on Capitol Hill is something to watch. In fact, most immediately his ability to get confirmed by those on a Capitol Hill in the US sense.

That's right, and after some of the other more controversial names that we've been talking about. This is not considered to be a very heavy lift for the transition team in achieving this confirmation. We'll have a long way to go here talking about this and the relationship that the Treasury will have with the Commerce Department suddenly now overseeing the US Trade Representative when it comes to tariffs. This is going to be an interesting combination.

Yeah, and that reminds us that we still have yet to learn who the next US Trade Representative will be, who will lead the National Economic Council, have those roles inside the White House that also could be formative in the actual defining of policy and the implementation of it. But this was a large selection for a president elect who campaigned almost entirely on the issue of the economy. We knew he was taking the role of Treasury Secretary very seriously. He took his time in making this decision. But now we've understood and we've learned that it is Scott Bessant who ultimately gets the nomination.

Interviews at mar A Lago on Wednesday with Bessint with Warsh with Rowan clearly with three boxes to check, Maga Wall Street and ready for TV. Donald Trump has made his pick Scott Bessett, now officially the nominee for Treasury Department

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