Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent holds a press briefing

[0:00] good afternoon everyone good like to say it's a pleasure to be here today this is my warm-up for [0:07] my senate and house hearings next week so i don't want anyone yelling reclaim my time so let's start [0:15] out with trump accounts trump accounts i believe are the most important benefit for young people [0:20] since the gi bill today the app is now available on all major platforms bringing the president's [0:26] vision directly to american homes nearly six million american children have been signed up [0:32] for trump accounts which will launch on july 4th and i would encourage all of you to go to [0:38] trumpaccount.gov to sign up we had a historic tax filing season we passed the largest tax cuts in [0:46] american history the average refund this filing season is nearly thirty three hundred dollars [0:51] an 11 increase from last year and importantly very importantly 62 million returns 44 claimed at [0:59] least one of the president's signature tax cuts no tax on tips no tax on overtime the reduced taxes on [1:08] social security benefits 85 percent of our seniors paid no taxes and the auto deductibility on loans for [1:17] american cars and to remind everyone democrats every democrat voted against those programs we've had [1:25] sustained and resilient gdp growth real gdp has risen 2.6 percent over the past four quarters atlanta feds [1:33] gdp now predicts 3.8 percent for this quarter second quarter the u.s energy dominance part of our [1:42] resilience stems from our energy dominance natural gas is down as my belief and the futures market is [1:50] showing us oil will be lower than pre-conflict levels we are more resilient to energy price [1:55] fluctuations due to president trump's energy dominance and deregulatory agenda the united states is now the [2:02] world's largest energy exporter the united states has never exported so much energy or produced so much [2:08] energy main street prosperity the average 401k is up almost 30 000 since president trump's inauguration [2:17] president trump rx has already saved americans over 600 million dollars i'm sure all of you will want to [2:22] report on that and the unemployment rate remains low at 4.3 percent so with that i'm happy to ask some [2:31] questions i will mention three weeks ago i got an honorary degree from the university of south carolina so if [2:37] you really want to get a question you can call me dr besson so [2:48] you know there's a lot of people a lot of working class americans that maybe don't have the financial [2:55] expertise when it comes to stock markets and investing in general in what ways do you are you [3:01] guys simplifying this for all those americans so that it's not just for one class of people but all [3:06] americans can have it well that's a great question because 38 percent of americans have no exposure [3:12] to equities they don't share in the great innovation the machine that is the american economy or great [3:20] capital markets drives the our prosperity so if your child is born during president trump's administration [3:30] treasury puts in a thousand dollars as a seed investment we've also created six learning pods [3:37] so you can go online to the app that went up today and learn and i think that this is going to be [3:44] i've been a big proponent of financial literacy and i think this is going to be one of the greatest [3:50] real-time financial literacy educations in history because it won't be oh like there's a street in new [3:57] york called wall street this is what i don't really understand what happens there american family is [4:03] going to be able to look on their phone every day and see and you know i think it's going to drive [4:08] people to try to understand what they've got here i think we're going to create a generation of [4:14] shareholders so so all right ed mr secretary um i guess first well we're starting to see this disruption of [4:22] the oil supply and food straightforward moves affect economic data um you know first is there a deal [4:28] on the table uh for a 60-day ceasefire to continue that and then second um how fast could inflation [4:35] then recede or retreat or is inflation sticky because the pce was uh at a three-year high well first of all [4:42] p pce today month month month was 0.2 which was we're we're looking at decimal points but the estimate was [4:49] 0.3 so one month doesn't a trend make and what we've seen is actually oil prices are down about 10 [4:57] percent in may there are almost 2 000 ships waiting to come out of the gulf and i think the oil market [5:03] is going to be very well supplied on the other side of this and that we could see prices come down very [5:09] quickly we saw the uae the leave opec so i i would expect on the other side of this that gasoline prices [5:17] will follow the on the table sorry is there an agreement with iran on the table uh the the teams [5:24] have been going back and forth and president trump has made it very clear he talked about it at the [5:29] cabinet meeting that he he has several red lines and iran has to turn over their highly enriched uranium [5:38] they cannot pursue a nuclear weapon and the strait of hermuth back to your question on energy has to [5:44] free transit navigation of the seas has to be free and open as it was before so he's not going to [5:51] take a bad deal he's going to make a great deal for the american people [6:01] how long until we see your signature next to president trump's face [6:07] on a 250 dollar bill well the again as treasury secretary i i have two mandates for u.s currency [6:16] at present that no living person can be on u.s currency and the currency must stay in god we trust [6:24] so right now there is proposed legislation that in front of the house in front of the senate to change [6:31] the first requirement so that a living person donald j trump could be on the 250 dollar bill [6:37] so it it's all in the hands of the uh it's it's all in upland capitol hill so at treasury we prepare [6:47] things in advance so we have prepared in advance that if the legislation is passed but we will stick [6:54] to the law [6:57] they came up yesterday also at the cabinet meeting president trump said oman will behave just like [7:02] everybody else or we will have to blow them up are you guys back there in the west wing making [7:07] plans for a new war with oman again i think the president wanted to punctuate freedom of [7:15] navigation in the strait i had a call with the omani ambassador this morning and he assured me that [7:21] there were no plans for tolling the strait as he said our countries have had 200 years of good relations [7:28] he wants to have another 200 more and you know i told him that this was a non-starter and he did not [7:35] want to risk either the omani individuals or omani financial institutions via getting sanctions [7:46] is it in the u.s interest to waive some sanctions on iran or to unfreeze some of their assets before [7:53] iran has made concrete um promises about getting rid of their nuclear program again i i'm not going to [8:00] preview the deal but i i would think that the uh things would go very slowly the uh in terms of [8:07] that so you know we'll we'll see just to follow up on that because it's our understanding that the [8:14] u.s has committed to discussing the matter of sanctions relief during this negotiation period so [8:19] just to be clear is sanctions relief for iran on the table again it is a multi-faceted agreement [8:26] and uh nothing is going to be on the table until we see the strait of vermuth open and the iranians [8:35] agree that they they have to turn over the the highly enriched uranium and that they can't have a [8:41] nuclear program and and and to be clear here that this administration president trump has done something [8:48] that no other administration is able to do we have gotten the iranians to talk about their nuclear [8:54] program and to perhaps commit to not having one that has never happened before it had been off the [9:00] table so i think you know when you look at the results of the kinetic action of our economic [9:05] pressure it has worked to bring them to the table and have a discussion on this mr secretary i just want [9:12] to follow up you said that the teams have been going back and forth but can you confirm whether or [9:17] not a tentative agreement has been reached in these negotiations with iran again everything depends [9:24] on what the president wants to do and president trump is not going to make a bad deal for the [9:30] american people for the the u.s and he was very clear at the cabinet meeting on the uh yesterday what [9:37] he wants [9:44] cara from lindell tv i'm sorry did i still have his question because i'm not that person no it's you [9:48] okay thank you so much thank you for taking my question cara from lindell tv i really want to get [9:54] your thoughts on digital currency a lot of our viewers are increasingly worried that digital [9:58] currency could one day be used to track people's spending or limit personal freedom what's your [10:04] philosophy on that and what it safeguards is the treasury and its administration putting in place to [10:09] make sure new digital payment systems protect americans privacy and freedoms in the future well so this [10:14] administration has been very clear there will be no central bank digital currency which i think [10:19] the is would be the first step toward tracking so we have taken that off the table we passed stable [10:25] coin legislation with bipartisan and the clarity act is now up on the hill i think it has bipartisan [10:32] support and the most important thing we can do is to make digital assets come into the united states [10:40] make the u.s the home our regulation our best practices or what will ensure good standards for [10:48] these when you look at digital assets all the nonsense that happens all the things you read about [10:53] that's because it's the wild wild west offshore so we got to bring it on short so i would encourage [10:58] the house and the senate to get clarity done jack [11:02] a lot of people talking about the irs settlement and which has been rolled over now into this [11:15] weaponization fund over at doj wanted to get your comment on the decision process as much you can tell [11:22] how that settlement came to be how it was rolled over to doj and then the process for uh how for those [11:28] funds now as it's played out good so thank you thank you for the question uh this is going to be the [11:33] only question i'll take on this matter today so there's ongoing litigation so it'd be inappropriate [11:39] for me to comment uh president trump is a great american who has endured more than 10 years 10 years of [11:45] non-stop harassment and weaponization from the federal and state government actors the a bad actor [11:52] at the irs leaked more than 400 000 tax returns including the trump family all the employees [12:00] and that's how we got here now no american should be targeted for political reasons and every citizen [12:06] deserves fair treatment full protection of the law the department of justice represented treasury [12:11] and the irs in this matter and i'm going to have to refer any questions to acting attorney general [12:17] todd blanch so uh thanks so uh president trump has said that we can expect interest rates to come [12:26] down very quickly a number of times with that last week but the market at the moment does probably [12:32] does not expect any rate cuts this year you know jp morgan said this morgan stanley and so on so who is [12:38] right the president or the market the well i i think again i i believe that we will get get through [12:48] that this challenging period now they are on higher prices on the other side of this i've said [12:54] publicly that i think we'll be back to substantial disinflation but most importantly i think we've got [13:01] the wars fed now it's a new day at the fed the treasury secretary and the fed chair have lunch or [13:07] breakfast every week i had my first breakfast with chair wars this morning and i believe that he will do [13:13] the right thing to balance inflation and growth [13:22] thank you secretary that's it uh i hope you're calling on me yes so i i'd like to ask you if you [13:28] provide a little more detail on what you're doing to shut down iran's airlines and also on sanctions [13:33] relief uh a senior administration official brief reporters over the weekend that sanctions relief will [13:39] be commensurate with nuclear concessions but at some point if the enriched uranium is given up [13:45] should we expect how its cash to be flown to iran can you describe how that looks well a couple of [13:51] things on the airlines one thing that we're not going to do is restrict movement for religious reasons [13:57] so iranians who want to make the pilgrimage the uh to mecca or medina will be allowed we will also [14:04] allow uh valid humanitarian reasons but the the other thing we can do is that when these airlines [14:11] fly they have to be refueled they sell tickets they pay landing fees anyone who accepts those we will [14:16] sanction so they should be very clear that the state-owned iranian airlines they are outlaws and cannot [14:25] do this you're the white house briefer today i know you've been asked this already but i'm wondering [14:34] if you can just confirm on the record that there is a tentative deal that has been agreed for a 60-day [14:40] extension of the ceasefire and then a continuation of your talks again it's always a mistake to get [14:47] out ahead of the president so it is all going to be the president's decision i think that we we can see [14:54] that the president very clearly stated out stated his three the open the street highly enriched [15:02] uranium no nuclear program so are those things part of the the temporary deal right now sir are those [15:12] three aspects that you just outlined part of the temporary deal that has been agreed that if there [15:18] could be no deal without those why would there be a deal without those mr secretary thanks so much [15:25] uh for taking the time uh president trump at the cabinet meeting said he thought that reducing [15:30] fraud would help to balance the budget you put out the the goal of getting uh the deficit to three [15:37] percent of these people what's your timeline for achieving that and how do you think the what can [15:42] you say to make the markets given where rates are like kind of process kind of what your plan and agenda is [15:47] well the the gao numbers not my numbers believe that there's about 500 billion a year of fraud so uh could [15:54] we very quickly get 250 billion billion of that the budget deficit is approximately 1.8 trillion so [16:03] that would reduce the the deficit substantially if we could get that 500 billion number you know i think [16:10] it would engender confidence you'd probably also go into a virtue virtuous cycle as the budget deficit [16:16] narrowed interest rates would go down uh no one reports it but last year we actually had a fiscal [16:23] contraction just to remind everyone we inherited the worst budget deficit in history in history when [16:31] we were not in a recession or not at war 6.7 percent we brought that down to about 5.5 or 5.4 percent this [16:39] year i think we'd stay on a good trajectory [16:45] mr secretary uh without an executive order does the u.s government have adequate defenses in place to [16:51] address the risk created by anthropics new ai models we have great collaboration between all of the labs [17:00] that have the large language models but between the u.s government the uh and the labs thank you mr [17:08] secretary is me okay thank you mr secretary appreciate it um first did you speak with the president [17:15] uh before this briefing did he show any willingness to this 60-day uh ceasefire i i haven't seen the [17:21] president today i just want to follow up when can americans the average american and can the u.s economy [17:27] work for the average american without a deal with a rod again i i believe we've already seen uh oil prices [17:35] come down uh substantially uh we are pumping more oil than we've ever seen before and i as i said [17:45] these are short-term challenges that we will get over and i think we'll move forward [17:52] secretary just to follow up no no in the white oh thank you mr secretary appreciate it um given how [17:57] much this upcoming midterm election will hinge on the economy what did you think about president [18:03] trump's comments in the cabinet meeting yesterday saying he didn't care about the midterms [18:09] so you're calling president trump a statesman you're you're saying that he is taking a statesman-like [18:14] position that he has a a a core belief and he he believes that the most important thing is for [18:22] iran never to have a nuclear weapon so i i believe both things can be true that we can do well in the [18:31] midterms that we perhaps have the makings of a deal here and i believe that and look the economy [18:41] that it is challenging now but unemployment is still low uh tax refunds were high and consumer [18:51] spending is still quite high so in in my private business over the years i always looked at what [18:57] were consumers doing not what they were saying and i'm in constant contact with the banks and every [19:04] income quintile is still doing well thank you mr secretary on the 250 bill mr secretary uh you said [19:16] the legalities of it are up on capital bill but i just wonder what your opinion is personally do you [19:21] think it's a good idea for the president to put his face on america again the president doesn't do [19:25] it the house and the senate have to do it what are the remaining assurances that president trump needs [19:38] to see in order for him to sign off on the agreement with iraq i i i i don't think it could be clear [19:45] um you're um you're following in the footsteps uh at the podium there of um secretary rubio and [19:55] vice president vance there's been quite a lot of talk about their present possible presidential [19:59] ambitions uh does your presence here today indicate that we might see you running in 2020 [20:04] no i i i think it just means they've run out of things on the food chain [20:10] there has been some back and forth over the last several days and also with the u.s [20:14] attacking iranian drones yesterday this morning centcom put out a statement that iran that [20:20] launches ballistic missile towards kuwait calling it an egregious ceasefire violation [20:25] how can the administration still argue that a ceasefire is in effect again with the iranian [20:31] with the iranian government we did not have regime change but we changed the regime as president [20:37] trump said at the cabinet meeting as we've said other times the first layer of leadership [20:43] the uh was eliminated the second layer and we're now at the third layer and you know the way to [20:49] think about it is the iranian government such as it is the uh is three pillars it is the elected [20:55] government it is the irgc and it is the clerics and they are having trouble communicating so uh we [21:03] are uh being patient we do not have unlimited patience president trump always prefers a peace [21:10] deal so everything we have done thus far has been defensive and at present that is what we will [21:17] continue doing but if president trump doesn't think he can get a peace deal then kinetic is back [21:21] uh thank you mr secretary uh are you hopeful that the oil prices will go down once this company is [21:32] over given the fact that this trade was remain closed and uh by the time this oil gets to the [21:38] mayor markets will be two or three months uh i i again the uh you know we see that the market i [21:44] believe is very well supplied right now the market seems to be going into balance there for itself so [21:50] you know i think that as the strait opens up we're going to see this burst of ships come out so [21:56] you know we may actually see how quickly can it be refined how quickly can it gets to get to its [22:02] destination thank you so much from the daily mail you wrote resilience on your cabinet note meetings [22:11] several times the photographer zoomed into it are you trying to keep the president calm [22:15] are you trying to keep yourself calm why did you write all those notes so people could look over my [22:20] shoulder photograph them and think they got us good so is the united states considering a [22:28] reconstruction program for iran if a deal is signed again i i think we we got to get to the deal [22:36] before we get to the other side before we get to the you in the pink no in the pink thank you [22:44] christina rodoña with telemundo network mr secretary uh how effective do you believe the current [22:50] treasury restrictions have been in pressuring the cuban government and also if you're in the room when [22:56] those talks are being held are there any plans to either tighten the sanctions or to ease the sanctions [23:03] against the cuban government to get some type of change again that's going to be up to that's going [23:08] to be up to the cuban government that they can go up they can go down that we've tried to get humanitarian [23:14] aid in and the regime that rejected it so because they they wanted to go through their corrupt system [23:22] so i um they could go up they could go down it's carrot and stick secretary rubio doing a fantastic job [23:30] of managing this process and we we at treasury are working with them in the red reagan race with [23:40] the daily caller i want to ask you about antifa uh in october the treasury department started working [23:45] with the fbi to investigate who's funding antifa can you give us an update on that investigation how [23:51] close are you guys finding out who's funding it it is ongoing we've made substantial progress and i think [23:58] in the weeks and months ahead we're going to have a lot to report one thing that did go the under [24:04] reported that i would point out to all of you is the irs is now giving guidance on the form 990 which [24:11] non-profits they have to file and we are going to encourage or demand that non-profits know their grant [24:22] recipients so if a grant recipient is violent the if they are suppressing people's rights [24:30] then you are responsible for that and i think that's a very good first step [24:39] new government data that shows that americans are now saving a smaller share of their incomes [24:44] than at any time over the past four years are you seeing signs that american households are dipping [24:49] into their savings to pay for the higher cost of things like gas and groceries and does data like [24:54] that concern you right now well so a little academic literature would tell you lower savings rate can [24:59] mean one of two things uh the kind of the the doomer view that you took or that people have more [25:06] confidence or it could be you know something else because you know for instance stock market gains or [25:13] 401k gains might not show up in savings so they're looking at that think that they can draw down their [25:18] household savings um you're obviously concerned about the risks posed by advanced ai models like [25:29] mythos to critical infrastructure the financial sector is concerned as well what types of what types [25:34] of changes are being considered to the ai executive order so it can pass and do you believe that an ai [25:40] executive order needs to include the pre-public access for government again we're working very closely [25:48] the with the large language labs they've been excellent partners and we are going to get a [25:55] solution that solves for the maximum calculus what we want to do the u.s is the ai leader in the world [26:02] we're an ai superpower china is second they are trailing substantially we want to make sure that we keep [26:08] that lead so we are working on the exact calculus between innovation and safety and we want to optimize for [26:17] that you you in the glasses thank you mr secretary in the glasses thank you very much no no you don't [26:28] have glasses on you you're in the glasses thank you for taking my question um there was a report this [26:32] morning that uh justice alito's son is working in your department can you confirm that that's the [26:38] case and if so do you believe that that means that he should be uh that the justice should recuse himself [26:45] from cases that involve your department i i i am sure that mr alito follows all legal and ethical [26:50] guidelines and i can assure you that at treasury we follow all the legal and ethical guidelines [26:58] thank you mr secretary i have two questions for you but just to follow what you said about the [27:01] well you didn't call me doctor so i only got one [27:06] you said that it's up to congress the president's face is on a 250 bill but it is actually the washington [27:11] post that's reporting two political appointees from the treasury department who have asked agencies [27:15] to be ready to to do that do you think politically it's a good idea to put his face on a 250 bill [27:23] you know i i don't really understand this washington post article that who hears from the post yeah [27:29] terribly written terribly edited because basically what what it says is that treasury is following the law [27:36] and that we've created the bill and that it's up to congress but that we follow the bill and it's [27:41] up to i didn't really understand what the story was anyway aren't involved in that two of your [27:47] political appointees yeah of course but we we prepare for everything if it gets passed just like we we [27:53] were ready six months in advance for the one big beautiful bill for tax guidance that so we have to [27:58] prepare in advance you you can't draw something up the day before politically do you think it's a good [28:03] idea though where people are struggling to afford gas and groceries look i think it has i i think that [28:08] it's bifurcated that do you think we should have a 250th anniversary the uh celebration well that's [28:16] happening anyway but but no no no no no no no no no no no no no but caitlin it's not happening anyway [28:21] it's happening because it's being funded the uh by private citizens by the federal government by state [28:26] governments by municipal governments to celebrate our country and i i don't think that the there's anything [28:33] untoward about having the president united states that the person who was president united states [28:37] on the 250th anniversary bill [28:54] dollar fund is it accurate that the general council of the treasury department resigned over that [28:59] i will not be taking any other questions i mean i will not be taking any other questions [29:02] so given the scale of the assault from russia on kiev in recent days and the fact that diplomacy seems [29:11] to have settled down there is no diplomatic talks happening right now between russia ukraine or the [29:17] u.s what about sanctions is the u.s considering sanctions on russia at this time well the the u.s this [29:24] administration has put the the hardest sanctions on russia of any country so so let's let's review let's [29:32] review what how the sanctions regime has gone since the russian action the uh on ukraine uh biden [29:41] administration put on very the what i would call mild mild sanctions because they were worried about [29:48] gasoline prices going up into an election it would be the uh an unstatesman like sanctions the probably [29:55] the worst national security advisor in the history of the country jake sullivan in an act of bravery on [30:01] his way out the door in january they raised the sanction level they on behalf of the trump [30:06] administration they we let those in situ they when we took office they have fast forward to october [30:15] and president trump instructed me to sanction the two largest russian oil companies luke oil and rosneft [30:23] which we did no other government has done that so no one has done more sanctions than the trump [30:30] administration on russian oil so yeah no no no no no no here here who wants to own this gray hair [30:47] no gray hair no you don't have gray hair well maybe maybe you do [30:53] yeah thank you when you had breakfast this morning with fed chair uh did you request that the fed lower [31:02] interest rates i i had breakfast with chair powell 41 times and i never did that okay last question [31:14] thanks sir uh governor gavin newsome has floated this idea of a hundred percent state tax on californians [31:20] who received money from president uh trump's anti-weaponization fund your response to the [31:25] governor's call from number seven there's no cure for stupid okay okay thank you all