Fox News Anchor Confronts Bessent on Trump Bill Adding ‘Trillions’ to Debt: ‘How Is That Acceptable?’
Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer confronted Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, over a new tax and spending bill just passed by the House. President Donald Trump insists that all of his allies call it the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
The House Reconciliation Bill includes a mix of significant spending cuts and more spending on other areas like defense. It also comes with a significant tax cut, which led to a report from the Congressional Budget Office to conclude that it will result in trillions more in federal debt. This detail does not play well with the more financially conservative members of even Trump’s own Republican party.
“You mentioned economic growth in your comment there,” Hemmer noted during a Friday morning interview on America Newsroom. “This bill adds trillions to our debt. How is that acceptable to this administration?”
“Again, you’re referring to the CBO scoring, which is 10-year scoring, and it’s DC-style scoring,” Bessent deflected. “So we think that we can both grow the economy and control the debt.”
Growing the economy out of debt has long been a talking point for the Art Laffer-inspired supply side, or “trickle down,” economic theory, for every Republican administration going back to Ronald Reagan. Not one of these administrations, however, ended up lowering deficit spending by a promised growing economy.
“What’s important, Bill, is that the economy grows faster than the debt,” Bessent continued. “So what I would tell your viewers to focus on is what I’m focused on is: What Secretary Yellen was focused is, what is the total debt to GDP. Because we can grow our way out of this; that if we change the growth trajectory of the country, of the economy, then we will stabilize our finances and grow our way out of it.”
“Grow our way out of it,” is not something that has ever happened in the past 50 years, so it’s not clear why this administration is relying on a provably failed approach, unless you consider the massive tax breaks for massively wealthy Americans, many of whom donated to the Trump campaign.
Watch above via Fox News.
