Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was on Newsmax‘s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” on Friday to talk about the condition of the US economy.
“The socialist movement that seems to be in a way taking over the Democrat party. Cost of living is fueling a lot of this as you know, in this country,” Schmitt said.
“Despite a lot of positive economic news, there is still a feeling from a lot of people that things are too expensive. I think it’s fueling, it’s kind of fueling what we are seeing here. How do we get rid of that liability, you know, before we vote again here in November?” Schmitt asked.
“How do we ease that so this movement kind of dies out?” Schmitt asked.
“This comes up all the time. We spent 45, 50 years fighting communism. The Soviet Union, which collapsed. Show me where it has ever worked before, whether it’s the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, and these policies, you always end up with less. You always end up with less of what people want,” Bessent warned.
“People should be upset. The Biden administration torched them as 21.5 percent unemployment. 4 or 5 percent loss of purchasing power. Wages didn’t keep up and for working Americans I think inflation levels are probably 30 or 35 percent for things like autos, insurance, rent,” Bessent said.
“We’ve been trying to bring those down. Core inflation printed two days ago, 2.5 percent. A very good number. Moving towards the Fed’s 2 percent,” Bessent continued.
“The Iran conflict has given us a temporary spike in energy prices. We are gonna get to the other side of this, and come down,” Bessent said.
Secretary Bessent explained that the economy is showing signs of improvement with some wage gains and prices either dropping or leveling out.
“What we have seen over the past year is that the bottom 25 percent of working Americans, their wages were up 5.5 percent. Overall wages were up above 4 percent,” Bessent said.
“3.5 percent headline inflation. That’s a real wage gain. It’s not great,” Bessent commented.
“Every week we are seeing real wage gains. Prices are coming down. CPI numbers showed drug prices are down, grocery prices have flattened out, car insurance is down, so I’m very confident we are going to get to a good place,” Bessent said.
“It’s unfortunate to see this DSA movement getting this kind of traction,” Bessent commented.
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