'You're celebrating this?' Trump admin ruthlessly dragged after 'weird' boast
Scott Bessent, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be secretary of treasury, looks on as he testifies during a Senate Committee on Finance confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 16, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The Trump administration's odd social media boast lit up the internet on Friday, as bewildered critics wondered whether the economic brag was meant as satire.

The Treasury Department's official account claimed that U.S. Treasuries are having their best year since 2020 and that investors who had “confidence and faith in President Trump’s economic policies have been richly rewarded.” a

"Never bet against [the president] or America," the post said.

The post attached a graph showing bond market returns at about 12.5% in 2020, the last year Trump was in office, before falling to -4% in 2021, -16% in 2022, -1% in 2023, 2% in 2024, and 9% in 2025.

Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, touted the results using a meme of children's book hero Franklin the Turtle fanning out $100 bills and wearing a MAGA hat in front of the Capitol.

But savvy social media users ripped the boast to shreds.

Amateur researcher Garrett Neary chided on X, "This chart goes insanely hard if your brain is smooth."

Charles Horn, who does communications for The Center for a New American Security, wrote on X, "Extremely weird flex."

Nishan Seal, who describes himself as a fractional CFO for small businesses, fact-checked the brag on X, writing, "The larger bars mean investors demand a higher interest rate for US debt because of the additional risk from the massive debt load caused by the Big Beautiful Bill and partisan turmoil, both of which were caused by Trump."

Professor and historian Aaron Astor chimed in, "Higher long-term interest rates are a big reason housing is unaffordable. You're celebrating this? If you were trying to pull a Paul Volcker and jack up interest rates to beat inflation, that'd be one thing. But...that's not what you're doing here at all. Oy."

Mike Bird, Wall Street editor at The Economist, shared a photo of Franklin the Turtle frowning and holding a chart showing growth expectations plummeting.

X user Ken Goodrich added, "Seriously thought this was a parody account. Did anyone currently employed at the Treasury ever take an econ class?"

MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes echoed the sentiment, writing, "this chart is so funny I thought it was a parody account."



SmartNews