joining us for his first interview since uh joining the administration as US Treasury secretary Scott Besson secretary Scott Bess I like the sound of that secretary Besson thank you Larry good to be with you thanks for coming on we appreciate it very much um you have thought about this flap that's developing I'm hearing about fiveyear or Edward Lawrence is reporting fiveyear extension not a 10year extension uh or other um flossom and jsum that would interfere with the uh Trump tax cut uh Larry look president Trump has a mandate he came in to do big things
and one of the big things that this Administration wants to do is make the 2017 tax cuts and jobs acts permanent and that permanency will be continue to make the US the number one economy in the world in terms of growth we're going to bring down inflation we're going to cut regulations and the we are going to get the tax cut the goal is still for them to be made permanent and as you just said that we are going to use current policy scoring W and the the the scoring that you I up until a
year ago I was a civilian I'd been looking at CBO numbers for 35 years in my day job in the investment business but I never understood the way this scoring worked and it is tilted toward spending and that is why the spending has gotten out of control here in Washington and as I understand it you all from the president on down but especially you you know you want to lower spending and lower the tax rates I mean and what what law says you can't do both is there some biblical chapter that says you can't do
both seems to me it's the right thing to do well Larry look the US does doesn't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem and I think we can up the revenues we can up the growth and most importantly president Trump got elected because of this affordability crisis and the you know as the discussion the as Caroline Lev was questioned recently what is he going to do for the affordability crisis real wage growth for working Americans is the best way to fix this we will contain prices we will cut regulation but real wages for
ourly workers in the Trump administ first Trump Administration which you're a key part of hourly workers wages they outdid supervisory wages and you know as I've said Wall Street where you and I came from has had it Great Wall Street can continued to do just fine and now under this Administration it's main Street's turn you know let's go back um so now you're the treasury secretary you were key adviser during the campaign and you talked about 333 and U Mr Trump repeated 333 on a number of occasions um tell us about 333 do you still
believe in it what does it mean what should people think about it Larry I I believe now that I'm in the seat I believe in it more than ever and look we we didn't get to this the debt and deficit problem overnight and I I noticed that Senator Schumer who is now screaming about debt and deficits that when it was time to break open the piggy bank during covid and we moved there from Rescue to recovery and the economy was already recovering and the Democrats blew out the deficits and they continued doing it right up
until this past year so as I've come into office we are going to have the highest deficit to GDP we've ever had when we weren't in the a war or a recession so but 6.7 6.8% of GDP so 3 three and three means over the next few years by the end of President Trump's turn term getting the deficit to GDP down to something with a three in front of it 3 and a half% that's our long-term average I think by cutting regulation by sending the right signals to the market we can create 3% plus economic
growth uh non-inflationary economic growth which is again what you and the economic team and president Trump did last time and the the 3 million more Barrel equivalents the of energy produced by the US produced in the US that I met had a meeting with Senator Sullivan from Alaska and he enjoyed telling me that the Biden administration had sanctioned Alaska more than the ayatolla and part of the the big energy agenda is energy dominance and energy security and you I I'll tell you that in some of the national security briefings that I've been in recently a
lot of the problems that we're seeing with Iran with the Russia with Russia have been these high not only the high level of the oil prices but where the oil is coming from so we're going to get our budget deficit in order we're going to up growth and we are going to bring energy production home that gets you to about 16 some odd million barrels a day well no to total total liquids so total liquids including that gas we're at about 21 now 2021 so it' be about a 15% increase on that base which would
get uh hold down inflation and would drop a lot of prices across the board president Trump talks about this a lot he has a very energy Centric view of inflation and it is true I mean oil impact permeates the whole economy impacts hundreds of consumer goods and various items that we use almost every day so this would be a tremend this this might be the way to finally slay by inflation oh look I I I couldn't agree more and I I believe that you know as you said when we talk about food prices a big
component of that is transport and the the inflation the actual inflation number uh only single digits of that is energy but in terms of consumers mind and especially workingclass Americans that the energy component for them the is one of the shest indicators for long-term inflation expectations so if we can get gas gine back down heating the oil back down then those consumers not only will be saving money but their optimism for the future will allow them to rebuild their lives that they've they had to struggle with over the past four years and so Mr secretary
let's go back uh step back a minute how do you see today's economy right now uh growth inflation interest rates how do you look at it when you speak with the president more or less what do you suggesting to them well Larry what what we've seen is this gigantic government spending that has been fueling the growth and I've talked about several times on your show uh during last year we're repr privatizing the economy and we are going to have private sector jobs we're going to do that obviously being the energy sector we are going to
have Smart Safe and Sound Bank regulation that gets small medium Banks lending again to Main Street and we're going to bring manufacturing home again so I um I I think that we've had a an economy that's been supported by the government we are going to slowly the torque that back to the private sector we're going to bring down the government spending get up the capex and bring good paying jobs home because the reason under the Biden Administration you haven't gotten real wage growth the government doesn't give real government jobs don't give doesn't give real wage
growth because they increase with the the inflation level so this is a uh basically you want to repr privatize what you're saying is you want more business investment and the business investment creates jobs and higher wages and that was the point of the Trump tax cuts going back eight years ago when some of us first started working on them and the thing that drives me crazy gu I hate to revisit this but the CBO stuff and some things some weird things I'm hearing some from some of our Republican friends um the Trump tax cuts didn't
produce growth yes they did didn't raise wages yes they did didn't enhance productivity yes you did but hang on a second didn't raise revenues yes they did why are people panicking on Capitol Hill why am I hearing fiveyear extensions as you say the president hasn't said that why are we hearing about why are we hearing the the tax cuts uh blow a hole in the budget deficit I'd say tax tax hikes would blow a hole in the budget deficit look if you want to look at an analysis what's going to blow not only a whole
in the budget deficit in the economy and in the lifestyles of workingclass Americans the if we do not get this tax bill done and I as I said in my Senate hearings this is pass fail for the our side of the aisle and we will have the largest tax hike in history largest tax hike in history and that will be on the people on our side who do not try to move this forward yes sir um now um Trump critics say he wants always wants lower interest rates and he always wants a cheaper dollar do
you have a repos to that or maybe that's true or what do you think uh Larry uh the the president wants lower interest rates and what he sees the in my in my talks with him that he and I are focused on the the 10-year Treasury and what what is the yield of that so the purpose of lowering interest rates is to lower interest rates the Federal Reserve that and I will only talk about what they've done not what I think they should do from now on uh they did a jumbo rate cut and the
tenure rate went up now now I've seen this year despite the growth estimates going up ten years's coming down because I believe believe the bond market is recognizing that as you and I talked about energy prices will be lower and we can have non non-inflationary growth you know we cut the spending that we cut the size of government we get more efficiency in government and we're going to go into a good interest rate cycle but um Scott B it seemed like that the president was conditioning lower rates on lower oil prices that's what it seen
I didn't see him uh I know he's had some truth social postings about all this in the Federal Reserve I didn't see him attacking the Fed so much on an interest rate basis he attacked them for permitting higher inflation uh which turned out not to be transitory but it seemed like um that he really wanted to keep King Dollar he wanted to keep the dollar as the world's Reserve currency and at the particular moment right now he wasn't blasting he he wasn't demanding for lower rates unless and until we get the oil prices down thoughts
uh look uh you're exactly right on his view on the US's Reserve currency that excellent speech he gave at the economic Club of New York you and I were there in August he they explicitly said he wants the US to remain the reserve currency you and I know that you can be a reserved currency and the price is going to fluctuate based on on the market and you know as I said he wants lower rates he is not calling for the FED to lower rates he believes that if we do all the things that you
and I have talked about today the if we the deregulate the economy if we the get this tax bill done the if we get energy down the then um rates will take care of themselves and the dollar will take care of itself but he insists on it being the world's Reserve currency uh I mean he said he would he would tariff 100% some of these brick countries if they actually went through and created another currency they haven't yet but he seems pretty adamant about uh what I call King Dollar but what is said keeping the
dollar the world's Reserve currency yeah Larry I I've been in the currency markets for 30 35 years and I can tell you that there is no alternative to the dollar right uh these these other countries can talk about it they may try to take away our Reserve currency status but there is no other Reserve currency on the horizon um let's shift gears a bit uh much in the news until today much in the news um tariffs and um Mr Trump has had actually some success uh with his tariff threats although I think he's quite serious
and at some point we'll come back to that and tariffs will go up not down but what how do you see as treasury secretary um you're going to be a key player according to the president how do you see the Tariff strategy right now yeah I I I think it it's a uh there's several different aspects to the strategy we saw what happened with Colombia the president threatened tariffs and the president of Colombia not only uh allowed um illegal immigrants back into his country he offered to send his own plane uh he threatened tariffs on
or signed an order for tariffs on Mexico and Canada over the weekend and then on Monday president of Mexico offered 10,000 troops at the Southern border and Justin trau uh virtually the same thing and this is in response to the fentol crisis uh also tariffs on China and again this is due to the fentol crisis this is not a revenue issue right now will it become Mr Trump seems to be moving I mean um Steve Miller said this yesterday but I've heard from president Trump he seems to want to move the system towards more tariff
related revenues and fewu for income tax related uh revenues and a universal tariff seems to be out there whether it's 10 or 20% I don't know what um what can you tell us about that well lar Larry I I think Terrace or means to an end and I think that end is bringing the manufacturing base back to the US that in theory tffs would be a shrinking Ice Cube that you would tariff a country and then as the production comes back to the US the the income tax the corporate revenues and the uh pay uh
income tax goes up and the Tariff income was go would go down our the current account deficit goes down our trade deficit goes down so tariffs are a mean to means to an end to resore U you know Economic Security in the US but he's still concerned about reciprocity and unfair trading practices completely yeah and look we we saw uh several things uh probably the only good thing that I could say about the covid crisis was it was a test run for what an a a hot War could look like a deeper economic War could
look like and we realized that optimal Supply chains are not uh secure Supply chains so you know we want to bring back medical supplies we've got to bring back Ste ship building things like that so uh we know that we have a group of industries that we were very vulnerable during the covid crisis that places like China the most imbalanced economy in the history of the world most unfair Trade Practices in the history of the world uh were not reliable suppliers and you know I point everyone the very good article in the Wall Street Journal
today that talks about the China shock and how much worse it was for working Americans than anyone had thought really interested in in economics article National Bureau of economic research very interesting the China shock last one um treasury secretary Scott Bon um it's just in the headlines today um the um Elon musk's influence on the treasury Doge's influence on the treasury you're the treasury secretary what can you tell us about this the you know Larry that Elon Musk is the greatest entrepreneur of this generation and the the Doge uh you know Outlook and their brief
from the president the department of government efficiency and we had the grace Comm you and I are old enough to remember you you you were you were in the administration the grace Commission in the 80s failed years yep the uh Bill Clinton Al Gore set up a commission on government efficiency failed and doge is not going to fail and that they are moving a lot of people's cheese here in the capital and um that when when you hear this squawking then some uh status quo interest is being is not happy what I will tell you
that at at the treasury uh our payment system is not being touched everything we we process 1.3 billion the payments a year uh there's a study being done can we have have more accountability more accuracy more traceability that the money is going where it is but in terms of payments being stopped that is happening Upstream at the department level all right well I just um essentially you're saying you're cooperating on this government downsizing with um Elon Musk and Doge what what I'm saying is that at treasury our our motto the is to move deliberately and
fix things I like that okay treasury secretary Scott Besson thank you for coming on we appreciate your time very much thanks L and all best of luck on the new position
