U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent hosted a dinner for his predecessors at which he believed he was being "unfairly" criticized for his actions in Donald Trump's administration, leading one journalist to label him a "poor little baby."
The Washington Post on Sunday published a story called "Market-savvy Treasury chief Scott Bessent emerges as unlikely MAGA warrior," in which it reported, "Wall Street accepts partisan jousting as price of influence with Trump."
"President Donald Trump’s combative treasury secretary in recent days has attacked prominent Democrats by name on social media, described inflation as largely a blue state problem, and lampooned three Democratic governors as 'Grinches' and 'radical leftists' suffering from 'Trump Derangement Syndrome,'" the outlet reported. "The jousting shows that compared to his predecessors in both parties, Bessent is unusually eager to engage in partisan combat. He attended the president’s campaign-style rally in Pennsylvania this month, a rare move for a treasury secretary. In a recent appearance at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, he responded to questions about Trump administration practices with gibes about former president Barack Obama and Hunter Biden, the son of another former Democratic president, and echoed his boss’s attacks on the press, claiming that he no longer reads the Times."
The report goes on to suggest a possible origin for the official's change in tone.
"Bessent’s sense of grievance deepened in April, at a traditional dinner for the new treasury secretary hosted by several of his predecessors. Normally an evening of rarefied clubbiness, the night turned sour as some attendees, including Lawrence Summers, who held the job under President Bill Clinton, harshly — and in Bessent’s view — unfairly criticized the administration’s tariff plans, the associate said," the report states.
Journalist John Harwood flagged the dinner story and wrote only, "Poor little baby."