Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent got a serious beat-down Friday as an MS NOW analyst accused him of not living up to his reputation and coming off as just another “clown car” appointee of President Donald Trump's.
Catherine Rampell, a former economics journalist for the New York Times, argued Bessent and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's unexpected missteps have stunned and outraged Wall Street.
“These two guys were supposed to be serious people,” she said. “They were people that the markets trusted, and they were chosen because the markets trusted them.”
The problem, argued Rampell, is the company the pair keep.
“Look, everybody else in this administration came out of the clown car, right?” she said. “These are people plucked out of Fox News green rooms and Trump's own personal legal team."
Rampell argued Bessent and Warsh's past resumes should have guided their decision-making more.
“They both worked for legendary investor Stan Druckenmiller, who I know you've talked about quite a bit recently on your show," she said. "
"The problem is, Bessent in particular, has not been acting like a serious person. I think he kind of shot his credibility almost immediately in some of the actions that he took early on when he got confirmed, when he basically invited those goons in to have unprecedented access to the Treasury payment system.”