adminTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on The Ingraham Angle to push back hard against the predictable media freakout over President Trump’s meeting with Xi Jinping, laying out a sober, strategic case for talking from a position of strength rather than ceding the field to hysteria. Bessent made clear this was about leverage and de-escalation — not weakness — and reminded viewers that negotiating from America’s interests is exactly what a strong president is supposed to do.
Far from the cable-news panic machine, Bessent told reporters the administration is in an “all‑hands‑on‑deck” mode to bring down inflation, tackle housing, and get spending under control, signaling real governance instead of the endless hand‑wringing we saw under the last administration. Conservatives should welcome a Treasury team that actually focuses on cutting the deficit and restoring economic sanity instead of inventing crises to justify bigger government.
He didn’t spare Democratic leaders or the legacy media from criticism, blasting their years of runaway spending and appeasement that left America weaker and more dependent on hostile regimes — the very behavior that “didn’t do squat” to protect American workers and industry. It’s refreshing to hear a senior official call out that failure bluntly rather than joining the bipartisan chorus of excuses and finger‑pointing.
On China policy, Bessent framed the administration’s tariff pressure and targeted negotiations as necessary leverage to force fairer outcomes, not an invitation to economic collapse or reckless decoupling. If Democrats had enforced American interests instead of subsidizing our rivals, we wouldn’t be in a position where tariffs are the leverage of last resort; the current team is using every tool to bring China to the table on terms that protect U.S. sovereignty and industry.
Remember who Scott Bessent is: the man Trump tapped to clean up a bloated federal balance sheet and to push tough, pro‑American economic policy in Washington, confirmed and sworn in to run the Treasury in January 2025. Patriots who care about national strength and fiscal sanity should stand with leaders who actually act — not the armchair opposition that cheered runaway spending for years and now pretends they invented concern.
