The Tucker Carlson Show - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Breaks Down Trump's Tariff Plan and Its Impact on the Middle Class

00:00:00.000 Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for joining us.

00:00:02.800 So we're at the Treasury Department.

00:00:03.800 The President had a press conference yesterday next door

00:00:07.240 in which he announced a whole new tariff regime, global.

00:00:12.000 He'd been promising to do this, well, for 40 years, really.

00:00:15.400 It came not out of nowhere, but it was clearly his intent all along, as stated.

00:00:19.800 But it did rattle people, including some of his supporters.

00:00:22.940 So I just wanted to ask you, big picture, where do you think this leads?

00:00:27.420 Well, Tucker, thank you for having me.

00:00:30.760 And as you said, the President's been talking about this for four decades.

00:00:34.060 Yes.

00:00:34.300 And this is transformational for the American economy,

00:00:37.920 for the American worker, and for the new Republican alignment.

00:00:43.300 And it's a combination of the old and new ideas.

00:00:49.200 Some of the old ideas were put away.

00:00:51.460 I always tell everyone, and they don't want to hear it,

00:00:53.840 the original tariff man was Alexander Hamilton.

00:00:56.760 Yes.

00:00:57.200 And he used tariffs to fund the new nation and to protect American industry.

00:01:02.640 President Trump has added a third leg to the stool,

00:01:05.320 and he uses tariffs to negotiate.

00:01:08.120 Yes.

00:01:08.260 But I think this is not unlike, I was a freshman in college

00:01:12.500 when Ronald Reagan came in in 1980, and a new day in America.

00:01:18.280 And when I talk to people now, and they look back,

00:01:21.920 and they look at the Reagan years so fondly.

00:01:24.240 Yes.

00:01:24.480 I remember what it was like.

00:01:27.200 And it was choppy.

00:01:29.460 Very choppy.

00:01:30.620 Very choppy.

00:01:31.400 President Reagan stood the course.

00:01:33.380 And look, this is not an invitation,

00:01:34.880 but at one point in the early 80s, a farmer showed up with a shotgun at the Federal Reserve

00:01:41.700 to kill Paul Volcker for raising rates.

00:01:45.700 So, like I said, that's not an invitation for anybody for action.

00:01:50.000 But it was a tough time.

00:01:53.180 And then in 1984, President Reagan won re-election with 49 states.

00:02:00.460 And I think they may have even let Mondale win Minnesota just so it wasn't a skunk. 1.00

00:02:05.660 Just to be nice.

00:02:06.400 Yeah.

00:02:06.480 And that's what President Trump is doing now.

00:02:10.120 For years, the American worker, middle class has been eviscerated.

00:02:17.120 American workers have taken it on the chin.

00:02:20.040 And we're just starting to see some of the research now.

00:02:22.820 Like, we're seeing research on what's called the China shock from 2004.

00:02:28.800 It's just coming out now.

00:02:30.360 And it's what you know.

00:02:31.980 It's what I know.

00:02:33.000 But finally, academics are saying, oh, gosh, the American workers never recovered from the

00:02:40.300 China shock.

00:02:41.280 What a surprise.

00:02:42.260 And President Trump sensed it 40 years ago.

00:02:46.440 But out on the campaign trail starting in 2015, up until last year, he has promised the

00:02:54.200 American workers that the old standard of living can come back. 0.93

00:03:00.080 And because what we've seen over the past at least 20 years since the China shock, but

00:03:05.120 more like the past 30, are these massive distributional problems where the coast have

00:03:11.520 done great.

00:03:12.300 Yes.

00:03:12.980 And the middle of the country has just seen quality of the life expectancy decline.

00:03:21.180 They don't think their children are going to do better than they are.

00:03:24.020 And a lot of people don't care.

00:03:26.520 And President Trump cares.

00:03:28.200 This administration cares.

00:03:29.560 And this is the first step towards realigning that a lot of our trading partners, including

00:03:35.920 some of our allies, have not been good partners.

00:03:39.100 If tariffs are so bad, why do they have them?

00:03:43.500 My question.

00:03:44.300 Why do they have them?

00:03:45.620 Right?

00:03:45.940 Or if the American consumer is going to pay all the tariff, then why do they care about

00:03:50.820 tariffs?

00:03:51.540 Right.

00:03:52.000 Because they're going to eat them.

00:03:54.260 So I think that this is the beginning of a process.

00:03:59.380 We're going to re-industrialize.

00:04:01.800 That we have gone to a highly financialized economy.

00:04:06.420 We have stopped making things, especially a lot of things that are relevant for national

00:04:14.120 security.

00:04:15.000 I think one of the few good outcomes from COVID was we had a beta test for what maybe a kinetic

00:04:25.560 war with a large adversary could look like.

00:04:28.400 And it turned out that these highly efficient supply chains were not strategically secure.

00:04:35.560 So that we don't make our own medicines, that we don't make our own semiconductors, that

00:04:40.680 we don't make our own ships anymore.

00:04:43.820 So I think if I were to say, was there any good outcome from COVID?

00:04:49.540 It woke the world up to these supply chain problems.

00:04:54.340 So economic security is national security.

00:04:57.960 President Trump and I have talked about that a lot.

00:05:00.300 So this is a national security issue that we're seeing here.

00:05:04.680 But it's also an economic security issue.

00:05:07.220 And it's to, I don't want to say redistribute, but it is to give working Americans real wage

00:05:19.200 gains and enhance their lives.

00:05:21.880 And I've said out on the campaign trail, one of my most frequent mottos was, Wall Street's done great.

00:05:33.160 It can continue doing well, but it's Main Street's turn.

00:05:37.140 It's Main Street's turn.

00:05:38.500 And that's what we saw yesterday.

00:05:40.680 It's Main Street's turn.

00:05:41.880 So over the course of my life, 55 years, Wall Street really has been the commonly recognized

00:05:50.040 measure of economic health.

00:05:51.340 Like, how's the Dow doing?

00:05:52.700 We've got entire TV channels devoted to tracking its progress, which has mostly been up during

00:05:57.400 the course of my life.

00:05:58.060 So if the equity averages fall, if the stock market falls, that's seen by a lot of people

00:06:06.560 as like a measure that the economy itself is in decline.

00:06:09.600 Do you think that's a fair measure?

00:06:10.580 Look, the market goes up and down.

00:06:15.120 Warren Buffett has a saying, in the short run, the market's a voting machine.

00:06:19.840 In the long run, it's a weighing machine.

00:06:22.060 And in the long run, it's going to weigh, do we have good policies?

00:06:25.260 Yes.

00:06:25.580 And in my former business, I commented on market structure, market ups and downs a lot.

00:06:34.820 I'm trying not to do that.

00:06:36.440 Yes.

00:06:36.720 But for everyone who thinks that these market declines are all based on the president's

00:06:43.340 economic policies, I can tell you that this market decline started with the Chinese AI 1.00

00:06:49.960 announcement of Deep Seek.

00:06:51.940 Right.

00:06:52.080 So the so-called MAG-7, the tech stocks, had been doing very well for about 18 months, led

00:06:59.340 the market.

00:06:59.800 And I think that there was kind of a real dose of reality in what was going on in AI.

00:07:09.060 And I think U.S. is going to remain the leader in AI, but the AI related stocks started coming

00:07:16.200 down.

00:07:16.660 So, like, if I were to analyze in my old hat, and this is the only time I'm going to talk

00:07:21.520 about it, my old hat, what's happening with the market, I'd say it's more a MAG-7 problem 0.96

00:07:26.880 and not a MAGA problem.

00:07:28.500 Right.

00:07:29.040 So it's a deeper.

00:07:30.860 So actually, the markets are, you're saying in this specific case with tech stocks, are

00:07:36.140 taking like a real measure of the value of companies relative to foreign companies.

00:07:40.000 Well, it's sad, but if we look, the equal weighted S&P, even after today's moves, down

00:07:47.000 4% in the year.

00:07:48.700 You know, in a long-term chart, you wouldn't even notice that.

00:07:51.760 Yeah.

00:07:51.980 And I think the most important thing that we can do, that I can do as a treasury secretary,

00:07:57.200 that President Trump wants to do, is put in sound fundamentals for the underlying economy.

00:08:04.380 And if the underlying economy is good, if taxes are stable, if businesses have predictability,

00:08:10.600 if we have cheap and plentiful energy, if we deregulate, if we treat our workforce well,

00:08:17.420 then we're going to have a great stock market.

00:08:20.440 Fair.

00:08:22.160 The president suggested in describing his plan for tariffs, he said, look, you could conceivably

00:08:28.360 fund a lot of government with tariffs.

00:08:30.000 And that would suggest that taxpayers fund less of the burden.

00:08:35.660 And so do you expect that these will be accompanied by a congressionally approved tax cut for the

00:08:42.440 middle class?

00:08:43.780 So, Tudor, I just want to go back for a moment, too, that one of the things that the tariffs

00:08:49.480 are doing is we are pushing back against other economic systems.

00:08:54.160 So the Chinese have a very different economic system.

00:08:57.080 They have low cost, some would call it literally slave labor.

00:09:02.300 They subsidize industry with subsidized loans.

00:09:07.280 They have a lot of non-tariff barriers.

00:09:10.620 Your show can't be shown there.

00:09:13.940 Yes.

00:09:14.080 So we're pushing back against that.

00:09:19.600 And with the tariff income, it can be substantial.

00:09:23.520 And if we think like a classical model of tariff income would say if there's a 10% tariff,

00:09:31.000 then the currency would appreciate about 40% of that, so 4% of it.

00:09:36.860 Then the producer in the other country would eat about 4%, and then the U.S. consumer might

00:09:45.360 have a one-time price adjustment of 2%.

00:09:48.540 So, you know, in a 10% tariff, maybe the consumer pays 2% of it.

00:09:56.040 We saw there's a study out recently from a group at MIT that shows that with President

00:10:01.780 Trump's first China tariffs, which were approximately 20%, the price level went up 0.7.

00:10:08.280 So to answer your question, if we could put on a 20% tariff and have the foreigners pay 1.00

00:10:18.220 that and use that money to bring down our government deficit and keep taxes low here,

00:10:24.940 that's a very unique formula that hasn't been tried in this country for a long time.

00:10:29.840 And do you think, but it would require congressional participation to get there,

00:10:33.260 to move tax rates, of course, are set by the Congress, so.

00:10:35.540 Well, what we're going to have now, we are in this very odd, what I would call betwixt

00:10:41.660 and between, between the tariff income and what Doge is doing in terms of the cutting

00:10:48.700 government expenses.

00:10:50.260 So CBO scoring, and for 35 years, I was on the other side of the wall, and I would always,

00:10:57.080 oh, well, CBO says this.

00:10:59.080 And I didn't really realize that kind of CBO scoring is a lot like Enron accounting,

00:11:04.040 that it's not real.

00:11:06.340 And when you actually look at the real story.

00:11:08.580 But you assumed it was on the outside?

00:11:10.500 Sure.

00:11:11.140 Well, they're experts.

00:11:12.900 It's a congressional budget office.

00:11:14.300 It's a congressional budget office.

00:11:16.860 And they're well-intentioned people.

00:11:18.700 They just have the nonsensical rules.

00:11:21.420 Think about this.

00:11:23.340 When all the scoring's done over a 10-year window.

00:11:27.300 Yes.

00:11:27.940 So they just assume 1.7 or 1.8% economic growth over the 10 years.

00:11:34.980 And that never moves.

00:11:36.880 Whether you raise taxes or cut taxes doesn't move.

00:11:41.920 So that's what, like, during the campaign, when Vice President Harris was announcing all

00:11:48.160 these big tax increases she wanted to do and things like that, that the CBO was scoring 0.98

00:11:53.740 her very well.

00:11:54.960 And President Trump wants to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent.

00:12:00.260 That was kind of a blowout number because, obviously, growth's going to go up a lot when

00:12:08.300 you cut taxes.

00:12:09.760 So that was a long way of saying we will not get credit for the tariffs in any bill because

00:12:19.320 Congress is not going to legislate it.

00:12:21.460 The president's doing it with executive authority.

00:12:25.100 But the money will be coming in.

00:12:27.380 We've already taken in several hundred million dollars on the China tariffs from his first

00:12:33.240 term.

00:12:33.880 We take in about $35 billion a year just on the old tariffs, not on the new ones.

00:12:41.080 So in the CBO window, that's about $350 billion, which pays for a lot of the president's promises

00:12:49.980 on no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime.

00:12:55.480 Making interest deductibility on autos made in the U.S.

00:13:01.040 And think what the president's doing here.

00:13:03.400 He is backing into an affordability solution for the bottom 50% of wage earners because they're

00:13:12.540 the ones who will benefit from all four of those programs.

00:13:15.760 So looking at, say, a year from now, so beginning of next April, do you have any sense of how

00:13:22.580 much the U.S.

00:13:23.620 government anticipates bringing in from the tariffs announced yesterday?

00:13:27.560 It's going to be a moving target.

00:13:30.180 For sure.

00:13:30.720 But could it be anywhere from $300 billion to $600 billion a year?

00:13:36.200 Sure.

00:13:36.640 Okay, so that's meaningful revenue.

00:13:39.960 Very meaningful.

00:13:41.180 But what will happen with tariffs over time, the ultimate goal of the tariffs, and the president

00:13:46.860 says it all the time, bring your factory here.

00:13:50.460 That's the best solution toward getting away from a tariff wall.

00:13:55.660 So move your factory from China, from Mexico, from Vietnam, bring it here. 1.00

00:14:04.000 So what will happen over time, we'll have substantial tariff income in the beginning.

00:14:10.020 Manufacturers will build their factory here.

00:14:12.880 The tariffs will drop.

00:14:14.560 But the revenue from the factories, from income taxes, from all the new jobs will go up.

00:14:21.560 So, you know, we'll be taking it in domestically as the tariffs drop.

00:14:27.880 And why are the tariffs dropping?

00:14:29.300 Because we're making it here and our trade deficit's dropping.

00:14:33.840 So you've obviously thought this through.

00:14:36.960 You think that the United States has the necessary labor force for this transition?

00:14:43.100 I think we do.

00:14:44.240 I think with AI, with automation, with so many of these factories are going to be new.

00:14:52.160 They're going to be smart factories that I think we've got all the labor force we need.

00:14:58.660 And what we are doing on the other side, one of the reasons, other than my support for President Trump,

00:15:05.680 that I came out from behind my desk, and, you know, I had a pretty good life.

00:15:09.640 And I wanted to come out and really tell people that I was worried about an impending financial calamity,

00:15:19.480 given the high levels of government spending that were leading to high levels of government debt.

00:15:24.840 So what we are doing, on one side, the president is reordering trade.

00:15:30.240 On the other side, we are shedding excess labor in the federal government and bringing down federal borrowings.

00:15:42.080 And then on the other side, that will give us the labor that we need for the new manufacturing,

00:15:47.740 and we're going to relever the private sector. 0.96

00:15:52.720 So the private sector, in essence, has been in recession during the Biden years.

00:15:57.280 And this is an opportunity to right-size the federal government and unleash the private sector again,

00:16:05.440 because it's been hemmed down by excessive regulation, and it's been crowded out by the government.

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00:17:44.900 Do you ever think, since your job is to, part of your job is to forecast, like, the effects of these policies,

00:17:50.300 that you have, well, you've got probably one out of six people in this country here illegally, maybe 50 million.

00:17:57.520 Illegal aliens, and the president said he wants to deport them.

00:18:00.380 Then you have AI, and the projections there are massive labor market disruption.

00:18:05.860 Fewer people needed. You alluded to that a minute ago.

00:18:08.820 Then you have the tariffs, and, like, we can guess as to their effect, but we don't really know because we've never done it.

00:18:14.700 And then you have the reaction from the rest of the world to those tariffs.

00:18:17.640 Like, there's so many huge factors that are effectively unknown that are black boxes.

00:18:22.760 Really? Do you ever think, like, wow, you know, it's kind of hard to know what's going to happen.

00:18:26.580 Look, it is, and I always think that you can never be 100% sure, but you can stay within sight of guardrails and keep moving forward.

00:18:41.600 I can't remember.

00:18:43.420 One of the Sunday morning shows I was on a couple weeks ago, the commentator asked me, you know, she said,

00:18:49.960 can you guarantee me there won't be a recession?

00:18:52.560 And I said, I can't guarantee you anything.

00:18:54.420 Like, there's nothing that tells me there should be one.

00:18:58.180 So, I believe that this is going to work, just like President Reagan believed that supply-side economics was going to work.

00:19:07.780 But what I do know, that the old system wasn't working.

00:19:13.620 I think that's right.

00:19:14.140 And if you look at a system that's not working, you've got to be brave to change it.

00:19:19.460 So, what wasn't working?

00:19:21.920 Would it have been really fun for me to come in and just keep issuing a lot of debt?

00:19:27.600 And it's almost like a bodybuilder is taking steroids.

00:19:31.360 Outside looks great.

00:19:33.740 You're muscular.

00:19:35.140 Inside, you're killing your vital organs.

00:19:37.440 That's what was going on here.

00:19:38.600 But it would have been easy to keep pumping up the economy, borrowing a lot of money, creating a lot of government jobs.

00:19:47.520 There was no controversy when we're doing all that.

00:19:51.180 But you were going to end up in a calamity.

00:19:54.300 If you go back and look, you look at the financial crisis in 07, 08, economy looked great right up until then.

00:20:05.720 You go back and you look at the end of the dot-com bubble, and then the whole credit problem with the fraud at WorldCom, Enron, some other companies.

00:20:16.480 Economy looked great until it didn't.

00:20:19.420 And I think one of the things that we won't get credit for, but that this administration will have done, is avoiding a financial calamity.

00:20:30.160 You know, think about it, that they've done an analysis that one of the reasons 9-11 happened, because the airlines didn't want to pay for reinforced doors.

00:20:41.060 Yes.

00:20:41.320 They kept pushing back.

00:20:42.840 FAA didn't push hard enough. 1.00

00:20:44.760 And now, you know, we've got the reinforced doors.

00:20:47.760 So I look at it, we're putting on the reinforced doors before the crash.

00:20:52.800 What's the scramble, the lobbying scramble by foreign governments going to be like over the next three months?

00:20:58.740 Because the president said yesterday, you know, we're putting a universal tariff, you know, one standard, but then, of course, each country's adjusted according to a lot of different factors, trade deficit, currency, manipulation, regulation, and then tariffs.

00:21:08.320 But, you know, this is all, as you said, a moving picture.

00:21:12.760 It's a developing situation.

00:21:14.940 So, like, if I pick a country, you know, Vietnam, China, I mean, I'm going to really try to bring pressure to bear on this administration to adjust those numbers.

00:21:26.520 Like, what's that going to be like?

00:21:28.260 It's going to be the president's decision.

00:21:29.900 And I think his view is this has been going on for a long time for friends and foes, and we're going to see where this plays out.

00:21:40.660 I think what's going to be more important than the discussion with countries is the discussion with companies.

00:21:47.880 So what do companies want to do?

00:21:50.280 As President Trump said yesterday, best way to get around the tariffs, build your factory here.

00:21:55.340 And what can we do here at Treasury to help that?

00:22:01.320 We're pushing to get the tax bill done so we can guarantee the low taxes, full depreciation within the first year.

00:22:10.500 We're working with Secretaries Bergman Wright on energy security, and we're working on getting the regulations down.

00:22:20.100 The president, I don't know whether he talked about it yesterday or the day before, Taiwan Semi, or just semiconductor manufacturer in the world, Lee Zeldin, the EPA commissioner, is working to push through all the permits that they need because we've just gone into this regulatory morass where it takes so long to get things done in this country.

00:22:41.700 So I think what will be more interesting are the individual company announcements more than the country announcements.

00:22:51.040 You want to sell to Americans, you've got to make it in America. 0.98

00:22:53.880 Sure.

00:22:54.380 Or pay the tariff.

00:22:56.660 So how is China as a nation going to—I mean, this is such a big challenge.

00:23:00.780 It's directly in their face.

00:23:01.900 It's about every country on the globe, but it's really more than any other country about China, I think it's fair to say. 0.88

00:23:07.420 How are they going to respond?

00:23:08.540 What's their retaliation look like?

00:23:09.880 Well, I don't know if they can retaliate for a couple of reasons.

00:23:13.840 If you look at the history, and I used to teach economic history, and when you look at the history, we are the debtor nation.

00:23:23.640 Yes.

00:23:23.980 We have the trade deficits.

00:23:27.240 The surplus nation is in the weaker position because the Chinese business model—and, Tucker, by the way, 1.00

00:23:33.780 the Chinese business model and the economy are the most unbalanced, imbalanced in the history of the modern world. 1.00

00:23:40.740 We've never seen anything like this in terms of their export level relative to their GDP, relative to their population.

00:23:48.980 So I think it is going to be very difficult for them to try to change the model.

00:23:55.500 They're in a deflationary recession-slash-depression right now.

00:24:00.880 They're trying to export their way out of it, and we can't let them do that.

00:24:04.780 But I think that when you think the Chinese manufacturing system is like that old Disney movie with the brooms carrying the buckets, there's nothing you can do. 0.97

00:24:14.040 Like, that's their business model.

00:24:15.800 It's not going to stop.

00:24:17.240 Now, what could happen if you were to say, Scott, what's the dream scenario?

00:24:25.580 That somehow there could be a deal where the U.S. and China, we want more manufacturing, which would mean a smaller part of the economy's consumption.

00:24:36.720 The Chinese have this imbalanced economy with too much manufacturing, and actually the Chinese consumers really get the short end of the stick. 0.98

00:24:48.720 So Chinese households, they're called in what's called the middle-income trap.

00:24:54.760 That could we do something together to say, okay, you rebalance, you consume more, manufacture less, we are going to consume less and manufacture more, and we'll be military rivals.

00:25:13.720 There'll still be an economic rivalry, but we're going to level the playing field by a lot.

00:25:18.760 Now, that's not going to happen tomorrow.

00:25:21.720 That's not going to happen in a month.

00:25:23.720 But over the next few years, they may have to come around because I think their business model is broken.

00:25:31.060 I think President Trump's broken their business model with these tariffs.

00:25:34.800 So you're describing, you know, the famous scenario where if you take a bank loan, the bank is in charge.

00:25:39.220 They can repossess whatever you barred against.

00:25:42.180 But if you take a big enough loan, you're kind of in charge of the bank.

00:25:44.960 Exactly.

00:25:46.300 And they've just got such a big deficit with us that...

00:25:51.500 They need our markets.

00:25:52.240 They can't survive with that.

00:25:55.980 Are you confident that there's like a clear enough channel of communication between the two governments that the details can be worked out and that nothing will go crazy in the meantime?

00:26:03.860 Well, I think what gives me a lot of confidence is the relationship between President Trump and Chairman Xi.

00:26:10.860 Yes.

00:26:11.860 That when you have a direct line of communication at the very top, then I think it's very difficult for things to go haywire.

00:26:21.200 Interesting.

00:26:22.180 What about the rest of the world?

00:26:23.560 What about Europe?

00:26:24.180 Look, the Europeans, we look back and there was a famous meeting where President Trump told the Europeans, you're insane for building Nord Stream 2.

00:26:38.020 What are you doing?

00:26:39.220 You already get most of your energy from Russia and you're going to double down on it?

00:26:43.440 And they did.

00:26:44.880 And look what happened.

00:26:46.640 So...

00:26:47.100 We blew it up.

00:26:47.660 Somebody did.

00:26:49.520 Somebody did.

00:26:50.420 Somebody did.

00:26:51.000 Probably Putin.

00:26:54.320 Some Norwegian fishermen bumped into it is what I read.

00:26:58.920 But look, the Europeans go kicking and screaming, but I think they're going to have to rebalance too.

00:27:07.500 Germany has a very imbalanced export economy and they were on the verge of de-industrialization.

00:27:16.480 They were the opposite of us.

00:27:18.260 They had expensive energy.

00:27:20.260 Yes.

00:27:20.580 They were depending on Italy and the countries in the South to keep the euro suppressed and they were selling into China.

00:27:30.060 And now China is becoming their competitor. 0.93

00:27:32.480 So you said at the outset, the first example, the analogy that you used was President Reagan's first term, you know, obviously big win in 80, recession of 82, wipeout, and then like the biggest landslide in history in 84.

00:27:49.500 So you're suggesting by saying that that, you know, the fruits were obvious within the first term, within four years.

00:27:55.760 They were.

00:27:56.580 The only difference now is there was a lot of competition back then, but there's a level of civility.

00:28:04.100 Yes.

00:28:04.240 And the real danger here, if there were a midterm loss, and I don't think there has to be, you know what's going to happen.

00:28:12.540 I know what's going to happen.

00:28:13.540 Democratic House is going to go immediately to impeachment for something.

00:28:17.040 Of course.

00:28:17.500 Like the lawfare is going to start again.

00:28:20.620 Yes.

00:28:21.040 And I think the American people are going to hate it again.

00:28:23.560 So Einstein's definition of insanity, doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome.

00:28:29.600 But do you think that, and this is really aimed at the people who support President Trump and who agree with you wholeheartedly that the current system was really bad and like drive across the country, you'll see how bad it has been.

00:28:41.440 Horrible.

00:28:42.640 It lowered life expectancy.

00:28:43.680 But the people who are hoping that yesterday's move will lead to a demonstrably brighter future within four years.

00:28:51.700 Is it your sincere prediction that within four years we'll say, actually, that kind of worked?

00:28:57.600 I believe that it's going to work.

00:29:01.780 And I know that what we were doing wasn't working.

00:29:04.820 Yes.

00:29:05.080 So I think we have to try this, and I have a high confidence ratio it's going to work.

00:29:12.740 And I have a very high confidence ratio.

00:29:15.420 The good news is we have President Trump's previous term when everyone said none of this was going to work.

00:29:22.080 Oh, the China terrorists are going to do this. 0.51

00:29:23.900 They're going to cause inflation. 0.85

00:29:25.440 They didn't.

00:29:26.860 This is going to happen to working class. 1.00

00:29:29.780 It's going to be bad for working class Americans. 0.94

00:29:31.860 Well, guess what?

00:29:33.000 Working class Americans, the hourly workers did better than supervisory workers.

00:29:38.920 The bottom 50% of households, their net worth increased faster than the top 10% of households.

00:29:46.900 And I'm not happy with what's going on in the market today, but the distribution of equities across households,

00:29:56.140 the top 10% of Americans own 88% of equities.

00:30:00.260 88% of the stock market.

00:30:02.840 The next 40% owns 12% of the stock market.

00:30:07.400 The bottom 50% has debt.

00:30:10.560 They have credit card bills.

00:30:12.480 They rent their homes.

00:30:13.780 They have auto loans.

00:30:15.240 And we've got to give them some relief.

00:30:18.800 I was struck by the statistic from last year.

00:30:22.220 That's the message right there.

00:30:23.280 Just as a bystander, I'm like, wow, okay.

00:30:24.860 I like the examples, and I was really struck by two different statistics last year.

00:30:34.780 Summer of 2024, Americans took more European vacations than they had in history.

00:30:42.140 Summer of 2024, more Americans were using food banks than they ever have in history.

00:30:47.920 I went into two food banks near my hometown to ask, what's the story?

00:30:55.480 And they said, you know, it really takes, for a lot of people, it's a loss of dignity to walk in a food bank.

00:31:02.720 Of course.

00:31:03.100 And, but they were seeing something, a new phenomenon, that it wasn't their traditional clientele.

00:31:09.560 It wasn't people who'd lost their homes.

00:31:11.220 It wasn't people out on the street.

00:31:13.560 These were working families who could no longer, you know, $100 at the grocery store, that basket of groceries every week.

00:31:22.820 They were missing five, six, seven things, and they were coming to the food bank to top up.

00:31:27.720 So, you know, that's not a great America.

00:31:30.880 Record European vacation, record food banks.

00:31:34.200 And, you know, no reason we can't keep the record European vacations going, but we got to take care of these other people.

00:31:42.380 But, and you know what?

00:31:44.420 That they don't want handouts.

00:31:47.860 The Democrats had this strategy called compensate the loser.

00:31:51.520 So, first of all, the name of that strategy, I don't think the bottom 50% of Americans are losers.

00:31:58.020 I think the system hasn't worked for them.

00:32:02.500 I think that they are winners.

00:32:04.620 It's just a bad system.

00:32:06.560 So, we are going to fix the system.

00:32:09.720 And, look, they want good jobs.

00:32:12.160 They want their kids to do better than they do.

00:32:14.360 They want to own a home.

00:32:15.920 They want to pay down their debt.

00:32:17.860 That, you know, this isn't hard.

00:32:19.680 And, you know, I think that we can do this in the next four years.

00:32:26.580 It used to be only crazy people thought they were being watched all the time, surveilled, the guy mumbling next to you on the bus.

00:32:33.200 But now anyone who knows what's going on thinks that because it's true.

00:32:36.840 Your phones are listening to you.

00:32:38.440 Tech companies tracking all your online activity in order to profit off of what ought to be private information.

00:32:44.660 Governments are watching, too.

00:32:46.120 It's a corrupt system.

00:32:47.280 It's frightening.

00:32:47.680 And the worst part is it's all legal.

00:32:49.680 The government certainly will not help stop this.

00:32:51.740 Of course, the intel agencies love it.

00:32:54.100 So, it's up to you to protect yourself.

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00:33:53.700 You grew up in a middle-class, working-class background.

00:33:56.820 You were very successful, lived in rich-person world for a long time.

00:34:01.100 While this was all going on, and I just have to ask you candidly, were you ever at dinner with people who were like, wow, you know, we're doing great?

00:34:07.980 I live in rich-person world, too.

00:34:09.200 I'm not criticizing you at all.

00:34:10.200 But, like, did anyone at dinner ever say, wow, you know, I just tried to drive somewhere for 100 miles in this country.

00:34:16.660 It doesn't look good.

00:34:17.220 Like, people are not thriving.

00:34:18.940 Was there any sense of that?

00:34:20.460 Among people you knew?

00:34:21.660 No, they were more, my net jet was an hour late.

00:34:24.260 I had the worst day.

00:34:26.340 My net jet was an hour late.

00:34:27.600 You can't believe, oh, my God, I'm going to switch charter companies.

00:34:31.680 So that's, and look, Tucker, I'm especially attuned to what I think is going on with the United States.

00:34:38.020 Because, you know, I will tell you, my family was very affluent.

00:34:41.960 Early settlers, we were very affluent for about 250 years.

00:34:47.700 My dad made a lot of bad financial choices.

00:34:50.060 So when I was born, first six, seven, eight years, we were affluent.

00:34:55.780 He lost everything.

00:34:57.960 And so I've seen what that's like.

00:35:00.900 I've seen both sides.

00:35:02.200 Yes.

00:35:02.440 That I was fortunate enough to be able to make it back and that, you know, I know what economic insecurity is like.

00:35:13.700 And I don't think people should have to have that.

00:35:17.020 Or if you want to work hard.

00:35:19.240 Yeah.

00:35:19.320 And people want to work hard.

00:35:20.800 You were out on the campaign trail of President Trump.

00:35:23.660 I was out on the campaign trail.

00:35:25.080 And I got to say, one of the most, so I went for the final two stops in Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

00:35:37.740 Pittsburgh in the Duquesne Arena walk in and there are the union workers, the steel workers.

00:35:44.800 They got in their hats, they got in their vests, they're with their children.

00:35:48.760 And it's very moving.

00:35:51.160 Like, they just want a better life.

00:35:53.520 They want their communities to be sound.

00:35:56.400 They want their kids to do better.

00:35:58.400 They want Little League baseball.

00:36:00.680 Like, they don't care what's going on in Madison Avenue.

00:36:04.900 They don't know what the hot new restaurant is in Paris.

00:36:08.360 And that President Trump somehow has assembled this incredible coalition of Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, and those folks who were in the Rose Garden yesterday, and those people I saw at the Duquesne Arena.

00:36:21.760 And I think it's unbelievable.

00:36:25.320 Interesting.

00:36:27.780 What do you worry about as Treasury Secretary?

00:36:29.940 Obviously, you're probably like lying in bed at night, thinking about all the things that go wrong with the U.S. economy.

00:36:34.700 What are your, if you could be honest, like, what are your biggest worries?

00:36:39.320 That, so to the extent that in my business career, I had a strong point, I think it was risk management.

00:36:46.880 So, I do myself with two things.

00:36:49.500 The United States leading bond salesman.

00:36:52.100 Yep.

00:36:52.320 And I think that with what's going on, I'm going to have a better and better story to tell as we're getting our economic house and our fiscal house in order.

00:37:01.200 And then I try to imagine what could go very wrong.

00:37:07.560 What would we do if there were another outbreak similar to COVID?

00:37:13.940 You can't worry about things like that.

00:37:16.720 But, you know, I worry about a kinetic war somewhere.

00:37:23.520 Yeah.

00:37:23.640 What would we do in the event of something that happened?

00:37:29.700 And what I try to do is create the situation where I can worry a little less every day.

00:37:36.620 So, I'll tell you, I came in, I was confirmed on January 28th.

00:37:42.000 And during the month of January, 10-year interest rates, which is probably the most important rate in the country, mortgages are based on that, business and capital formation is based on that.

00:37:55.420 I came in and that had almost spiked to 5%.

00:37:58.340 And I think 5% can be an uncomfortable area for the economy, for Treasury, who has to issue a lot of bonds.

00:38:06.980 And now that I've gotten in, I worry a little less, but I still worry we've got a tremendous amount of debt to roll.

00:38:18.360 And I worry that we aren't going to do the smart cuts and the focus on waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:38:29.340 I worry that that gets sidelined.

00:38:31.040 And then on the other side, I worry that the tax bill somehow gets bogged down.

00:38:38.300 We could have the largest tax increase in history.

00:38:41.500 Or, you know, I worry that the normal geopolitical things, whether it's Iran, Taiwan, that something goes haywire between Russia and Ukraine.

00:38:56.060 So you began your job description by saying you're a bond salesman.

00:39:01.160 You're selling America's debt to the world.

00:39:02.700 Yep.

00:39:03.180 And I know that was like a big part of the portfolio as the transition was envisioning it, like who can make the case for American bonds to the world.

00:39:11.760 How were your case, are you confident you can do that?

00:39:15.700 And how is your pitch changing after yesterday?

00:39:19.600 Well, as I said, right now we're in this strange betwixt and between because we are going to take in substantial tariff revenue.

00:39:30.880 And what Doge is doing is substantially cutting expenses, but we're not getting credit for it right now.

00:39:38.160 But I think market's starting to get a hint of it.

00:39:42.880 So the 10-year bond having almost peaked at five is now through four.

00:39:51.580 Way to think about it is every hundred, every basis points about a billion dollars in savings.

00:39:58.020 So we've saved a hundred billion dollars.

00:40:00.700 And that's probably not going to happen that quickly again, but I think that we are setting the sales for a much better fiscal time.

00:40:18.240 And people don't have to say the U.S. is out of control.

00:40:22.000 The U.S. is going to default.

00:40:26.240 We're not.

00:40:27.040 And I think every day my case gets better.

00:40:33.020 And if we were to just imagine a very reductionist formula for government, so G equals S minus T, spending minus taxes.

00:40:43.720 Right.

00:40:44.360 That for spending, our side, the Republicans, we like to spend, but less than the Democrats, but both sides like to spend.

00:40:55.260 And then minus T, Democrats like higher taxes, we like lower taxes. 0.99

00:41:01.160 What if the S actually went down?

00:41:04.720 And I think to me, that's the exciting part, that that's been unthinkable in everybody's calculation.

00:41:11.980 No one's even really seriously raised it, including Ronald Reagan, by the way. 0.95

00:41:15.060 And look, I think President Reagan had a different agenda, that he ramped up defense spending and remember, oh, he's crazy, it's this, it's going to break the budget, Star Wars is crazy, he's a madman. 0.72

00:41:30.680 And then the Iron Curtain went down. 0.79

00:41:33.040 Yes.

00:41:33.120 And we were able to, so it's actually a Soviet term.

00:41:38.000 And he used the Soviet strategy on themselves, on the Russians, escalate to de-escalate. 0.68

00:41:44.540 Yes.

00:41:44.720 So we escalated military spending.

00:41:47.060 They tried to keep up.

00:41:48.140 And then they collapsed.

00:41:51.140 So, you know, again, everything's easy in hindsight.

00:41:56.120 But I think here, what we're doing in terms of bringing down these incredible levels of spending, but more importantly, I tell anyone who'll listen, I said, remember, DOGE is the Office of Government Efficiency.

00:42:12.540 Not elimination, not extinction.

00:42:16.280 So what if we can actually do a better job with less?

00:42:23.060 Seems inconceivable.

00:42:24.580 But when I see what's going on in a lot of these government agencies, it's unbelievable.

00:42:30.080 And if you think, I've lived in Manhattan, I've lived in Florida, roughly state of New York, state of Florida have the same number of people.

00:42:41.840 Actually, Florida has a few more now.

00:42:45.160 So New York budget is about $235 billion.

00:42:50.300 Florida budget's $125 billion.

00:42:52.660 How do they do that?

00:42:53.900 Oh, yeah.

00:42:54.740 And there's no income tax in Florida.

00:42:56.960 Oh, yeah.

00:42:57.780 And the roads are better.

00:42:58.780 And you're going to get your driver's license, and it takes 15 minutes, not five hours.

00:43:05.520 So I think, can we make the rest of America look more like Florida and less like New York?

00:43:11.720 Or one day, is New York going to look more like Florida?

00:43:16.820 So do you think after four years, we will see an actual net reduction in government spending thanks to DOGE?

00:43:22.880 Inflation adjusted, yes.

00:43:25.640 Huh.

00:43:26.880 How long do you think Elon's in for?

00:43:28.780 I think that Elon, that day-to-day, I don't know.

00:43:34.860 But I think his imprint is going to be with us a long time.

00:43:38.660 And I think that the mainstream media has tried to demonize DOGE and all the folks who work with him.

00:43:51.040 And I tell you, we have a couple at Treasury, a couple at IRS, they're Treasury employees who I hired, I interviewed.

00:44:00.840 And I'll tell you, there's this one fellow, Tom Krause.

00:44:03.240 He was on TV with Brett Baer the other night.

00:44:06.480 And Tom's incredible.

00:44:08.180 He's done $100 billion of tech mergers.

00:44:11.120 With my investment business, I would have hired him.

00:44:14.040 I don't think I could have afforded him.

00:44:15.580 And he is doing this for the good of his country.

00:44:19.280 He came in without touching any of the payment systems that the mistruths that were spread by the Washington Post.

00:44:29.660 He has analyzed the system.

00:44:31.820 And within six weeks, he pointed at all the vulnerabilities.

00:44:36.420 There's a young man named Sam Kierkos who was on Laura Ingraham with me the other night.

00:44:42.660 And that was my idea.

00:44:44.120 It's like, let's bring him out of the shadows and let's make this demonization stop.

00:44:51.520 And, like, this young man, other than the fact he only owns one pair of pants, which he likes telling everyone, you or I would be happy if our daughter brought him home.

00:45:01.960 He's a patriot.

00:45:03.620 He's working hard for the country.

00:45:05.760 And he's analytical.

00:45:08.000 And the things that he's seen at the IRS just in their tech systems, that's all he does.

00:45:14.080 You know, Elon has a shirt that he wears under his jacket and he'll flash it every once in a while and it says tech support.

00:45:20.180 And that's what we're getting.

00:45:21.520 It is we've got a blockbuster-style government and we should be on Netflix.

00:45:29.920 We're hailing cabs and we're in an Uber economy.

00:45:33.560 Why can't the government be in the gig economy? 0.72

00:45:36.680 Not hard.

00:45:37.640 So we're not positive that cryptocurrency is the future of finance, but we do know that what we have now is broken and dangerous.

00:45:44.460 Debt has never been higher in this country.

00:45:46.180 Many of our so-called leaders are getting rich, serving you.

00:45:49.540 It's a scam.

00:45:50.180 So where does it go?

00:45:51.720 Well, thankfully, there are options.

00:45:54.020 Donald Trump has said repeatedly he wants the United States to be the crypto capital of the world.

00:45:58.140 He's already created the Crypto Advisory Council and recently signed an executive order to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve.

00:46:04.120 This could give normal people an alternative to the government's failing system and, frankly, to the U.S. dollar.

00:46:10.520 I'm not saying put all your money outside the U.S. dollar, but, like, don't be crazy. 1.00

00:46:14.040 Don't be stupid here. 0.99

00:46:14.820 You can see where it's going. 1.00

00:46:15.680 So the people at iTrust Capital can help you get in to this.

00:46:20.060 It's complicated for people who aren't following it.

00:46:22.820 They make it easy.

00:46:23.940 They're based 100% in the United States of America.

00:46:26.120 We looked into this.

00:46:27.280 They service only American investors, and they operate the only platform that allows you to buy and sell crypto 24-7, both inside and outside of your tax-advantaged IRA.

00:46:36.320 And it all happens on one easy-to-use dashboard.

00:46:39.800 They also operate a closed-loop system, meaning that bad actors can't access your account and steal your money.

00:46:46.100 So if you're considering adding Bitcoin if you want to or some other cryptocurrency to your portfolio, iTrust can be trusted, and it's easy to understand.

00:46:56.100 iTrustCapital.com or click the link below.

00:46:59.180 Can I ask you a weird question?

00:47:00.620 Who runs the Federal Reserve exactly?

00:47:03.000 I don't really—how can you have this, like, pivotal entity, institution that obviously has, like, the most direct effect on markets of any, and it does seem outside of political control?

00:47:18.080 What is that?

00:47:19.580 Well, look, I think that I—during my confirmation hearing, and I was actually at a dinner that Jerome

00:47:32.980 Powell was at last night, at my confirmation hearing, I said, you know, I'm only going to talk about the mistakes the Federal Reserve has made in the past.

00:47:42.240 I won't talk about the ones they're going to make in the future, right?

00:47:45.540 But I think it is important for monetary policy that they are walled off, that some of the other things they do, regulation, they got into DEI, they got into climate, I actually think that that impinges on their monetary policy and makes them vulnerable.

00:48:06.320 So, I think that they should focus on monetary policy, doing the best that they can for the American economy, the American people, keeping inflation low.

00:48:18.640 And then the rest, there are a lot of other banking agencies, too.

00:48:25.560 So, the Fed controls the weather now, too?

00:48:28.600 What were they doing with climate?

00:48:30.580 Well, I will tell you, there's something—the Treasury Secretary chairs something called the Financial Stability Oversight Council, and it's all the financial regulators.

00:48:41.580 And I think it was two weeks before Silicon Valley Bank went under, FSOC issued a report, and guess what they said the biggest risk to the financial system was?

00:48:54.800 Climate.

00:48:56.420 Really.

00:48:57.440 Not that there was a large bank in California that was having a slow-motion run on its assets and that it would cause another bank failure, then another bank failure.

00:49:08.720 It was climate.

00:49:09.520 But, so, as far as I can see, climate's been pretty good.

00:49:15.880 They failed.

00:49:17.300 The regulators failed.

00:49:19.140 And I think that's what people are getting sick of.

00:49:22.500 And it's back to one of my favorite phrases that President Trump uses, common sense.

00:49:28.520 Yes.

00:49:29.020 It's just common sense that if you have a whole bunch of deposits that could leave your bank with a click,

00:49:36.780 you shouldn't have all these long-term assets, but they were too busy worrying about the weather.

00:49:43.020 And there was also some degree of regulatory capture.

00:49:47.560 Seems hard to believe to the average citizen.

00:49:51.380 The CEO of Silicon Valley Bank was on the board of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, who was his chief regulator.

00:49:59.860 Are they going to tell that guy what to do?

00:50:04.020 Why is gold moving around the world in such huge quantities right now?

00:50:07.720 Well, a couple of things.

00:50:10.040 It's moving.

00:50:13.600 Physically, it's moving because of potential tariffs here.

00:50:16.720 So, it was unclear whether we were going to exempt gold from tariffs, which I believe we have.

00:50:26.700 So, there was a big move out of vaults in Switzerland, out of vaults in London to get it into New York.

00:50:34.860 And look, there are a lot of different stores of value over time.

00:50:40.260 Bitcoin is becoming a store of value.

00:50:43.060 Gold has historically been a store of value.

00:50:47.820 I think what's interesting is where do we see the gold demand coming from?

00:50:52.660 A huge amount is from China.

00:50:54.300 Yes.

00:50:54.800 Where, as I said, they're in the middle of an economic recession slash depression.

00:51:00.840 People don't trust the Chinese currency because they have capital controls.

00:51:05.000 There are 1.4 billion Chinese who all want to get their money out, and they won't let them. 1.00

00:51:13.620 They will let them buy gold.

00:51:17.480 So, that's the response you think.

00:51:19.440 But it's just, do you find it interesting that even now, 2025, when everything is abstract and digital,

00:51:25.260 that gold is still widely believed globally to be a reliable store of value?

00:51:30.860 I think that store, gold has a lot of history going with it.

00:51:39.040 Yeah.

00:51:39.640 That a friend of mine's grandmother during, Russia had a financial crisis in 98.

00:51:45.900 Then they had a big inflation.

00:51:47.640 And a friend of mine's grandmother went out and bought 18 bicycles and put them in her apartment,

00:51:52.020 and that was her store of value.

00:51:53.820 Yes.

00:51:54.120 So, how did she do on the bike investment?

00:51:56.120 Great.

00:51:56.900 Great.

00:51:57.280 I wish I did that well.

00:51:58.400 So, but that, look, gold, gold also has other applications, a lot of applications, jewelry in India.

00:52:09.820 But it's something that historically people have all agreed on.

00:52:14.240 And gold does not have, gold can't have a fiscal problem.

00:52:19.720 Gold cannot have a gigantic budget deficit.

00:52:22.980 Gold cannot have a war.

00:52:31.160 So, just the fact that it is this isolated thing makes it very interesting.

00:52:37.760 And the fact that the entire global trading system, until Richard Nixon took us off, was tied to gold.

00:52:45.500 So, you're not anti-gold.

00:52:48.160 Oh, no.

00:52:48.880 No, no, no.

00:52:49.480 I, when I had my fun, I think people might have called me a gold bug.

00:52:54.780 How did you wind up interacting with Zelensky?

00:52:56.820 The president asked me to go to Kiev.

00:53:02.360 Well, he actually asked me to lead the economic agreement that was part of his peace plan.

00:53:11.600 And I think it's important to look at the arc of President Trump's peace plan.

00:53:18.600 And he had sequenced it really well.

00:53:22.320 It was, we're going to sign a deal with Ukrainians. 0.99

00:53:26.720 And it'll do several things.

00:53:29.700 One, it will make the U.S. and Ukraine partners.

00:53:36.780 Link us closer together.

00:53:39.520 Two, it will be a symbol to Russian leadership that the U.S. isn't abandoning Ukraine.

00:53:46.560 But importantly, three, it will show the American people that we have an economic stake and that we haven't just been doing these massive grants, which has been the history of U.S. aid.

00:54:00.580 Of course.

00:54:00.900 So, Ukraine succeeds, we succeed, and it could be a long-term partnership.

00:54:07.840 Now, President, I thought it was important to take the agreement to Kiev and present it to President Zelensky.

00:54:15.280 Everyone was telling me, oh, no, have him meet you in Vienna.

00:54:18.780 He's going to be at the Munich Security Conference a few days later.

00:54:22.320 I said, no.

00:54:24.220 I want to go there and discuss it with him.

00:54:27.820 And that's how I ended up going to Kiev.

00:54:30.280 Very interesting going to Kiev.

00:54:32.220 Fly to Poland. 0.98

00:54:33.480 Then you get on, I don't know if you've been on it, get on this night train for 10 hours.

00:54:37.400 And you arrive at Kiev at 8.30 in the morning.

00:54:42.580 And for anyone who said, oh, President Trump's selling out to the Russians, not selling out to the Russians.

00:54:50.960 The Russians bombed Kiev four hours before I got there.

00:54:56.000 They hadn't bombed since November.

00:54:57.780 So, the Russians didn't like the look of this deal because it thought that it was actually something durable for the U.S. people and the Ukrainian people.

00:55:08.400 So, what happened?

00:55:09.560 President Zelensky was in the mood to sign the deal that day.

00:55:12.840 We had a spirited discussion and I said to him, you've got 50 reporters out there.

00:55:22.320 I am here to show that there is no daylight between the American people, the Russian people, between Ukrainian people, between the American leadership and Ukrainian leadership.

00:55:38.580 And I said, you've opened up daylight the size of the Grand Canyon.

00:55:42.900 What are we going to go out and tell those people?

00:55:44.800 He said, tell them I'm going to sign the deal in Munich.

00:55:48.480 I said, so you're going to sign the deal when you see Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio in Munich?

00:55:55.280 Yes.

00:55:56.680 He didn't sign it there.

00:55:58.880 There's a lot of back and forth the following week.

00:56:02.560 They're begging to come to the White House.

00:56:05.000 Should make him sign the deal before he comes.

00:56:07.340 And then he got to the Oval Office and blew up what should have been the easiest thing to do in the world.

00:56:15.260 He was supposed to show up, have a press conference.

00:56:17.820 We were going to have a private lunch.

00:56:19.340 If he had anything on his mind, there were going to be nine of us, nine of them in the White House dining room.

00:56:25.660 He could have aired his grievances then.

00:56:27.180 And there's a famous photo in the East Wing Ballroom of everything laid out on the table to be signed.

00:56:37.340 And it never got signed.

00:56:38.600 So this is an unelected president of a client state whose bureaucrats are being paid directly by American taxpayers, including their retirement accounts are funded by us.

00:56:48.460 And they have the lowest retirement age in Europe.

00:56:50.900 It's 60.

00:56:52.100 Put it in contrast, France is 62 and Italy is 67.

00:56:56.820 And we're paying for that.

00:56:59.080 And so at a certain point, you know, you wouldn't expect a man like that in a highly precarious position.

00:57:05.120 I think it's fair to say. 0.89

00:57:06.280 To, like, assume a high-handed tone with American officials and berate them and sniff a lot and say, you know, it's basically acting like a crazy person.

00:57:16.800 Like, how do you account for that? 0.79

00:57:18.020 The arrogance.

00:57:18.900 What is that?

00:57:19.980 Look, a couple of things.

00:57:21.540 He was a performer, kind of a vaudevillian, and he was an ordinary person thrown into a fraught time, rose to the occasion, was heroic, and I think is stuck.

00:57:39.600 And I think under a tremendous amount of pressure, I think that some of the government officials around him and the cabinet are very good.

00:57:50.020 I think some of the people around him, he's not getting the best advice, that his advisors are not perfect.

00:57:58.240 And I think if we go back to the agreement, I think one of the great things about the agreement is it makes sure that the money comes to the American people and the Ukrainian people.

00:58:11.100 Because, Tucker, let me tell you what the agreement wasn't.

00:58:13.300 It wasn't one of these rapacious Chinese deals where it's sign over your mines, sign over your port, or it wasn't a loan to own.

00:58:22.760 Here's a loan.

00:58:23.500 You're never going to be able to pay it back.

00:58:24.780 We're going to get this.

00:58:25.520 It's a genuine economic partnership that they put in assets.

00:58:31.500 We can put in loans from our overseas banks.

00:58:34.320 We put in American know-how.

00:58:36.440 And we don't make any money unless they make money.

00:58:40.540 And you know who doesn't like that?

00:58:42.760 People with their hand in the till.

00:58:44.460 Right.

00:58:44.980 Because we were regulating the flow of the money.

00:58:48.700 Ah.

00:58:49.220 So I think that's part of the glitch.

00:58:52.300 I am hopeful that it was a bug, not a feature of the system, and that that's been fixed.

00:59:02.920 We're expecting a Ukrainian technical team beginning of next week.

00:59:08.740 And I'm hopeful we can get this thing signed and go back to a win-win situation.

00:59:15.320 Because President Trump's—I didn't give you the full arc of the deal.

00:59:20.380 President Trump wanted to create this deal with the Ukrainians, then be able to go to Russian leadership and show them that we do stand with the Ukrainians, but on an economic basis.

00:59:37.260 And then the Russians would be incentivized to come to the table also.

00:59:43.540 And so that—the sequencing has been thrown off.

00:59:48.660 But, you know, I think we can fix it.

00:59:53.220 Are we ever going to get an audit of where all of our billions went, where all the weapons we sent, what happened to all the cash, all the pallets of $100 bills?

01:00:02.780 Like, where are they now?

01:00:03.960 Why is it hard to get an audit of what happened to the money?

01:00:06.260 I don't know.

01:00:09.600 Tucker, in my life, I always try to look forward.

01:00:12.400 And I think if this deal works, then that money could end up being small change.

01:00:19.700 Yes.

01:00:20.040 A good way to think about it, when the Iron Curtain came down, Ukraine and Poland's economies were roughly the same size.

01:00:29.860 Poland is three and a half or four times larger now.

01:00:32.860 Yes.

01:00:33.140 Poland is going to have one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world, higher than some Western European countries.

01:00:40.220 For sure.

01:00:41.060 Ukraine, to your point, because of various kleptocracy aspects, has been held back.

01:00:48.540 Yes.

01:00:48.820 So, hopefully, with U.S. assistance and President Trump engineering this peace deal, Ukrainian people can have a better future.

01:01:00.960 For a Treasury Secretary, you're a very capable diplomat, I must say, very diplomatic language.

01:01:07.300 Last question.

01:01:08.240 How do you—so, because this is also—and you're just going back to the tariff announcement yesterday, and because it's like—it really is a total departure from what all of us have grown up with and our expectations.

01:01:18.400 And however much you support it, it's like, it's new, and people are freaked out about it.

01:01:24.220 How do you keep message discipline in an administration, in any administration, and this one specifically, how do you decide how you're going to explain this?

01:01:33.220 Who's going to explain it?

01:01:35.200 How do you keep messages from contradicting one another?

01:01:38.200 What is that process like?

01:01:39.140 We all take President Trump's lead.

01:01:41.000 Yeah.

01:01:41.600 We know—we had a meeting yesterday morning.

01:01:45.880 We had a meeting after the announcement in the Rose Garden before we went out doing media.

01:01:52.020 And as you know, he's his own best spokesman.

01:01:55.200 Yes.

01:01:55.440 Nobody can do it better.

01:01:56.920 And then we fan out, and we are all unified behind this and his vision.

01:02:05.260 That's why we're here.

01:02:06.000 If you didn't want to be part of it, you shouldn't be here.

01:02:10.360 But do you ever say, like, you know, maybe this is someone who can reassure potential bond buyers, investors in markets, this person scares the crap out of markets, like, let's get the guy who reassures markets?

01:02:22.540 Well, the one thing I will say, that no one should listen to anyone in the markets talk about the U.S. dollar other than President Trump or myself.

01:02:32.620 We are the only ones who speak for this administration, the United States government, on dollar policy.

01:02:39.920 I can tell you, we have a strong dollar policy, and we are putting in all of the necessary ingredients to make sure the dollar is strong over the long run.

01:02:50.700 Can it go up and down on a Bloomberg terminal over the short run?

01:02:56.140 Sure.

01:02:56.880 Can individual bilateral moves happen between the dollar and the Mexican currency, the dollar and the yen?

01:03:04.600 Sure.

01:03:04.860 That's what I made my living doing.

01:03:06.920 I'm glad it does it.

01:03:07.720 But over time, if we put in solid economic fundamentals and do this transformative program, then the dollar is going to do great, and the American people are going to do great.

01:03:22.040 Secretary, thank you very much.

01:03:23.620 Thank you.

01:03:24.260 Appreciate it.

01:03:24.720 Thank you very much.

The Tucker Carlson Show - April 04, 2025

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Breaks Down Trump's Tariff Plan and Its Impact on the Middle Class

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