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[–] 42 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary? Shut the fuck up and talk about inflation. You're not good at it, but at least it's your job.

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  • [–] 18 points 3 days ago (4 children)

    He's been doing stuff like this a lot lately, chiming in on matters that have nothing to do with his portfolio, and it's always to fling threats at people Trump is mad at.

    It's not hard to figure out why. Bessent is failing, very publicly. Trump has assigned him an impossible task and he's stuck with no way out other than failure. He's out here flinging mud at Ukraine (and previously Canada) for the benefit of an audience of one. This is a loyalty display.

    You notice who else has been in the press a lot lately chiming in on stuff outside of his portfolio? Hegseth. For exactly the same reason.

    The only reason either of them are still in a job at all is because they don't want the optics of firing someone right before the midterms. Bessent is getting booted as soon as polls close, and I wouldn't be surprised if Hegseth follows him out the door. Hegseth I give better odds just because he's really good at saying all the shit Trump likes to hear, whereas Bessent, an openly gay man in a republican administration, was on thin ice from the start.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    I'm pretty sure he was saying things that were wildly out of his lane almost from the start, or at least back in 2025. The past 22 months have felt like 22 years, so I may have that wrong.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

    His first year on the job he was pretty quiet and really only talked about stuff relating directly to the treasury. Mostly he was the guy justifying the tariff policy which isn't technically his portfolio but it's not technically part of the executive at all so he's at least the closest guy available. And his comments were all just in the vein of "Reasonably intelligent sounding person says vaguely intelligent sounding nonsense."

    His pivot to openly mudslinging, as best I can tell, happened after he started losing control of the bond markets (not that he ever had control of them, any more than the coast guard has control of the tide).

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 days ago (1 child)

    I think I'm mashing up memories of him claiming absolutely false things about the Biden economy while sitting there with gaslighting, shit-eating grin on his face like all the others.

    At least the topic of the economy is relevant to his job function. But claiming Biden's economy was "terrible" and that donnie and his accomplices were somehow afflicted with some kind of mess they inherited is such a gigantic fucking lie, and Bessent has 100% been doing that all along.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 days ago

    Oh, no, he definitely did that, it's just that when I refer to mudslinging I'm referring to his making random attacks on other countries and so on. Saying "it was Biden's fault" is just proof a republican is breathing.

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