Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent Briefs Members of the Media, May 28, 2026

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