In an epic display of fireworks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent smashed ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” defending Trump’s filibuster push amid the government shutdown by citing Stephanopoulos’s own words from the Clinton era.
During his epic diatribe, Bessent pointed out how he labeled Republicans “terrorists” for the 1995 shutdowns, and pointed to embarrassing “quotes” from his book where Stephanopoulos admitted the strategy: portraying the GOP as “blackmailing” the rest of America with shutdowns.
Desperately trying to deflect blame, Stephanopoulos blamed “mischaracterization,” insisting there was no “history lesson.” Fighting back, Bessent urged moderate Democrats to cross aisles, and just a few hours later, the Senate advanced a bipartisan package 60-40, with five Democrats joining Republicans, which vindicated Bessent.
In any case, the interview began with infamous journalist George Stephanopoulos whining about the shutdown. “The president continues to post about ending the filibuster. Is that — is that the best way to end the shutdown right now? Is that what the administration’s position is?” he said.
Refusing to back down, Scott Bessent fired back. “No, George, the best — the best way to do it — and look, you were involved in a lot of these in the ’90s. You basically called the Republicans terrorists, and you said that it is not the responsible party that keeps the government closed,” he noted.
Continuing to torch Stephanopoulos, he declared, “So what we need is five brave, moderate Democratic senators to cross the aisle, because right now it’s 52 to 3. Five Democrats can cross the aisle and reopen the government. That’s the best way to do it, George.”
Trying to distract from this uncomfortable topic, the journalist deflected, “I can disagree with you about the history there, but we don’t have a history lesson right now.”Pouncing, Bessant interjected, “No, no, no, George. Let’s talk about what’s happening right now. If you want, I’ve got all your quotes here.”
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In a weak show of defiance against the Treasury Secretary, who was obviously besting him in the verbal jousting tournament, Stephanopoulos quipped, “I’m sure you do.” Seizing the opportunity, the Treasury Secretary said, “I read your book. So you got one purchase on Amazon this week, and that’s very much what you said.”
After a weak excuse from the journalist, Bessent kept going. “Well, George, I can tell you what we’re not going to do is what happened under the Biden administration, where the administration and the media gaslit everyone and said, ‘Oh, you know, there’s a vibe session, you don’t understand how good you had it,'” the Treasury secretary said.
Watch the clip here:
For context, Stephenopoulos took a different line in his 1995 book. “Smoke ’em out. There were a few parts. One, nobody knew, and it was perilous, because no one knew who would get blamed more for the shutdown, Democrats or Republicans. But there was more than the shutdown involved,” the enitlted journalist wrote at the time.
Building on this point, the continued, “First, there was also this threat that they would not extend the debt limit — that this was the big hammer that would force the president to accept whatever the Republicans wanted.”
Wrapping up his comments, he noted, “Our strategy was very simple. We couldn’t buckle, and we had to say that they were blackmailing the country to get their way. In order to get their tax cut, they were willing to shut down the government, throw the country into default for the first time in its history and cut Medicare, Social Security, education and the environment just so they could get their way. And we were trying to say that they were basically terrorists, and it worked.”
Featured image from embedded video