Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) ripped into Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, going on at one point during their heated exchange to tell him to “shut up” as the conversation turned toward inflation. Waters stated during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee that President Donald Trump’s tariffs and immigration enforcement operations were tanking housing affordability.
“Will you be the voice of reason in the administration and urge Trump to stop waging a war on American consumers?” the Democrat from Los Angeles pleaded. “Yes or no?” Bessent started to answer the question, saying, “You seem confused as to the definition of inflation.” Before the secretary could continue his answer, Waters interrupted him to ask the question a second time.
Both of them began talking over each other, though Bessent could be heard making the case that the Biden administration allowed “in between 10 and 20 million immigrants” who ended up taking “the housing stock of working Americans.” As the two spoke over each other, Waters was desperately attempting to get her time back.
According to a report from The New York Post, Waters butted in while Bessent was trying to say something, asking Committee Chairman French Hill (R-AR), “Can you shut him up?” Bessent then fired back, “Can you maintain some level of dignity?” Waters then started whining about Bessent taking up her time with his responses to her questions.
During the hearing, Bessent denied having written a letter that called tariffs inflationary and noted federal data that disputed the notion that import duties cause spikes in prices. “According to the San Francisco Federal Reserve, with 150 years of data, tariffs do not cause inflation,” he said to Waters. The House Financial Services Committee had convened to question Bessent about an annual report that was released by the Financial Stability Oversight Council.
The meeting held discussions concerning the identification and mitigation of financial risks such as the ones that caused the failures of several large banks including First Republic Bank, Signature Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank, while former President Joe Biden was serving in office. Later on in the hearing, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY) also went off on the secretary for allegedly ignoring the Trump family’s alleged conflicts of interest.
“Stop covering for the president! Stop being his flunky!” the Queens Democrat exploded, pointing a finger at Bessent. Meeks then claimed the “improper influence” came from the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture known as World Liberty Financial accepting foreign investments from the United Arab Emirates. Meeks continued his verbal assault against Bessent.
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“This is no longer just about a shady crypto deal or a possible gift when a foreign-linked investor is putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a company controlled by the president’s family and at the same time, this president is conducting foreign policy with that country,” he told the secretary. “It creates a national security concern.”
“I just want to know whether you will commit today to pause and heighten … scrutiny of any bank charter or license … connected to the World Liberty Financial until all of these conflicts of interest and foreign-influence reviews are completed and shared with the United States Congress.” Bessent wasn’t about to back down to Meeks.
The Treasury secretary said that the oversight Meeks requested was being fulfilled by “an independent entity.” He then took a verbal swing at Meeks’ move to “lobby Hugo Chavez” on behalf of his donors in a 2006 trip to Venezuela while he was still serving in Congress, pointing out the congressman’s own hypocrisy and corruption.
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