Bessent holds White House briefing as jobless claims, inflation rise amid U.S.-Iran war

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