One of President Trump’s top aides took a woke CBS News anchor to school after she made erroneous predictions about inflation, with the Trump Administration member going on to show that current inflation numbers show a four-year low, vindicating President Trump from those who claimed that tariffs would increase inflation.
For context, in a June 1, 2025, appearance on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told host Margaret Brennan that she had been wrong in her previous predictions about “big inflation” as a result of President Trump’s tariff strategy, clarifying that inflation is at its lowest in four years. In addition, Secretary Bessent explained to Brennan that the president’s increased tariffs on Chinese goods could revitalize the American economy.
In the interview, Brennan asked Secretary Bessent to weigh in on what she described as an “imminent military threat from China to Taiwan,” citing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Brennan said, “Days earlier, Secretary Rubio said he’d aggressively revoked Chinese student visas. On top of that, you have curbing exports to China. Trade talks, you said, with Beijing are stalled, and President Trump just accused China of violating an agreement, and now says no more Mr. Nice Guy.”
Continuing, Brennan asked Secretary Bessent if the Trump Administration was “intentionally escalating” a “standoff” with China. In response, the secretary pushed back, referring to Secretary Hegseth’s description of increasing tensions between China and Taiwan and saying, “I think that what Secretary Hegseth did was remind everyone that, during COVID, China was an unreliable partner.”
Building on his point, the secretary added that the goal of the Trump Administration was to “de-risk,” with China, saying, “And what we are trying to do is to de-risk. We do not want to decouple, Margaret, but we do need to de-risk, as we saw during COVID, whether it was with semiconductors, medicines, the other products. We are in the process of de-risking.”
Later in the interview, Brennan attempted to call out Secretary Bessent and the Trump Administration on the grounds that tariffs would lead to “less inventory or things at higher prices, or both” for consumers, to which Secretary Bessent replied, “Margaret, when we were here in March, you said there was going to be big inflation. There hasn’t been any inflation. Actually, the inflation numbers are the best in four years. So why don’t we stop trying to say this could happen and wait and see what does happen?”
Attempting to push back, Brennan said that she was only “trying to gauge for people planning around here,” going on to ask about how President Trump’s decision to double tariffs on foreign steel could impact the construction industry. Secretary Bessent replied, “Is it going to impact the construction industry? Maybe. But it’s going to impact the steel industry in a great way. The steelworkers, again, were left on the side of the road after the China shock, and now they’re back, they are Trump supporters.”
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Near the conclusion of the interview, Secretary Bessent backed up President Trump on his “big, beautiful bill,” which Brennan speculated would lead to a default on debt. The secretary said, “Well, first of all, Margaret, I will say the United States of America is never going to default. That is never going to happen, that we are on the warning track and we will never hit the wall.” He added, “Speaker Johnson would not be able to get this bill out of the House with his slim majority. He got it out. Leader Thune has a bigger majority, and this is with President Trump’s leadership.”
Watch a clip from the interview:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video