Scott Bessent's furious war with financial press threatens to spiral into crisis: insiders
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has frozen out the news outlet that reported his own contradictory mortgage pledges, a campaign media figures warn could endanger the economy.
The account comes from a Sunday report by Semafor media editor Max Tani, based on interviews with reporters, editors and Treasury officials.
Tani reported that Bessent threatened Bloomberg News with retaliation last September, then spent a year carrying the threat out.
Several media figures Tani contacted warned that a hostile relationship between the Treasury secretary and the press corps could pose a "real risk" if the United States hits an economic crisis, Semafor reported.
The warning comes as high interest rates remain front-page news, according to the report, and as so-called bond vigilantes — investors who dump government debt to force a change in policy — test the Treasury's credibility. Those shut out are the outlets bond traders read.
The fight began with a telephone call last September, according to Semafor.
Bessent was "furious" that Bloomberg reporters Anthony Cormier and Zachary Mider planned to report that he had once agreed to occupy two different houses as his "principal residence" at the same time, two people familiar with the exchange told Semafor. He phoned Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait directly.
If Bloomberg published, Bessent told Micklethwait, the outlet could expect different treatment from the Treasury Department, including no more appearances by the secretary, Semafor reported. His team also asked for more time to supply documents.
The story was headed for print just as President Donald Trump used the same rationale to force out Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, according to Semafor.
Trump fired Cook last year after Federal Housing Finance Agency director William Pulte accused her of listing two properties as her primary residence, Bloomberg reported. Her mortgage pledges alone justified removing her from the Fed board, Trump wrote in her termination letter, calling them "potentially criminal conduct."
Such charges are almost never brought. Federal prosecutors have charged someone criminally for misstating a primary residence on a mortgage application only 20 times in eight years, a Reuters review of more than 600 cases found, and just one was a standalone charge.
On Sept. 20, 2007, Bessent agreed that a seven-bedroom manor he was buying in Bedford Hills, New York, would be his principal residence for the coming year. On the same day, he made the identical pledge about a beachfront house in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
There was no sign of wrongdoing on his part, Bloomberg reported. Both mortgages came from Bank of America as part of one $21 million financing, so the bank could not have been misled. His lawyer, Charles Rich, signed the papers under power of attorney.
"Bank of America was fully aware that the Provincetown … property was not a principal residence and waived any requirement that it be used as a principal residence," Rich wrote to Bloomberg.
The problem for the administration was double standards, Bloomberg concluded, created by the president's decision to use the technical question of primary residence to remove someone he wanted gone.
Bloomberg published the article on Sept. 17, 2025.
Bessent has not appeared on Bloomberg Television since, Semafor reported, and some of the outlet's reporters privately complain they no longer receive certain press releases carrying key financial information.
Reporters from Bloomberg, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were later denied credentials to cover the Group of 20 finance meeting Bessent hosted in Asheville, North Carolina, from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1. Treasury approved nearly 300 journalists but gave no explanation, the Associated Press reported.
"Blatant attempt to evade public scrutiny" was how the Times described the decision, the AP reported, noting the agenda included bond markets and inflation.
"It has nothing to do with point of view," Bessent told the AP.
Bessent has attacked reporters by name in public as well, Semafor reported. He called a Financial Times story on Federal Reserve oversight "tabloid trash for market participants," dismissed its reporters as "pathetic" and "mendacious," and labeled the Journal's chief economic correspondent, Nick Timiraos, one of the "stenographers posing as journalists."
He has made time elsewhere, sitting for interviews in recent days with Right Side Broadcasting, Fox News and Steve Bannon's "War Room," appearing on the latter from the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Friday, Semafor reported.
"If some of the Bloomberg Terminal bros are unhappy with me," Bessent said there, "that's too bad."
"What we cannot do is dedicate the Secretary's valuable time to helping media swamp creatures manufacture a fake narrative," a Treasury spokesperson told Semafor, adding that Bessent has conducted hundreds of media engagements.
"The finest Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton," Bannon called him Friday, according to Semafor — the same Bannon who had backed his bid for the job.