‘Vibe Session?’ Treasury Sec Accuses Media of Hiding Bad Economy Until Trump Took Office: ‘We Were Told We IMAGINED High Prices!’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested on Sunday that the media deliberately skewed their reporting on the economy over the past year and a half in an effort to help former President Joe Biden and the Democrats, and have changed their tune on the economy now that doing so might hurt President Donald Trump and the Republicans.

On the latest edition of Face the Nation from CBS News, host Margaret Brennan brought in Trump’s Treasury Secretary on the subject of Friday’s blow-up at the White House in which Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy faced off against Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Bessent was at that meeting, and helped craft the mineral agreement that went unsigned between the U.S. and Ukraine as a result of the derailed discussion.

But first, Brennan talked to Bessent about the economy, saying that after five weeks in office, CBS polling shows Americans don’t feel the economy has been fixed from the Biden era.

“When can Americans expect to experience the benefits that President Trump said would be coming in day one?” Brennan asked Bessent to start.

“You know, Margaret, what I find interesting is, for the past year-and-a-half and during the campaign, most of the media said, oh, the economy is great, it’s just a vibe session,” Bessent replied. “Now that President Trump’s in office, there’s an economic problem. And I will tell you what the problem was–”

Brennan interrupted to claim, “We were pretty straightforward on this program.”

Bessent said that although he hadn’t seen “this program” specifically, “in general, this idea that working-class Americans didn’t know what they were talking about, they didn’t know their lived experience, they didn’t know what their pocketbooks were feeling.”

As the discussion continued, Bessent told Brennan that one of the ways Treasury is going to work toward resolving the problems plaguing the average American economically after the last few years is to appoint an “affordability czar” to oversee the “five or eight areas” that will make the biggest difference to the budgets of working Americans.

BRENNAN: When can Americans expect to experience the benefits that President Trump said would be coming in day one?

BESSENT: Yes, what – you know, Margaret, what I find interesting is, for the past year-and-a-half and during the campaign, most of the media said, oh, the economy is great, it’s just a vibe session.

Now that President Trump’s in office, there’s an economic problem. And I will tell you what the problem was. This is —

BRENNAN: We were pretty straightforward on this program.

BESSENT: Well, I haven’t seen this program, but the – in general, this idea that working-class Americans didn’t know what they were talking about, they didn’t know their lived experience, they didn’t know what their pocketbooks were feeling.

And I will tell you, President Trump was elected, one of the reasons was the affordability crisis, and we are setting about doing that.

BRENNAN: Number one one, right.

BESSENT: So, after four years, four years of disastrous policies, they were running these gigantic deficits that the – that led to the affordability problem, massive government regulations, so what we had was a demand shock from the government spending that was met by supply constraints with overregulation.

So we are in the process of deregulating, which will free the supply side, and we are cutting back the government spending. It took four years to get us here. President Trump has been in office five weeks.

And I can tell you, we’re working every day. What I will point out, interest rates, the 10-year bond, which I am focused on, have been down every week since President Trump was president. Mortgage rates have been down every week. So that’s a pretty good start.

BRENNAN: I hear you that sometimes the data lags reality, but when we are talking about people’s perceptions of the economy, it’s just how they’re feeling right now, we see in our polling, 52 percent of Americans say Trump’s policies are making grocery prices go up.

They explicitly said that on this bar chart you see there. So it’s an experience and a perception issue. When does that shift? When do we see the benefits of the planning you say is under way?

BESSENT: Look, I think President Trump said that he’ll own the economy in six or 12 months. But I can tell you that we are working to get these prices down every day.

But it took four years to get us here, and we’ve had five weeks. So interest rates are down. That’s a very good start toward housing affordability, toward auto affordability, and we are tackling this.

At Treasury, we are going to appoint an affordability czar. We are going to have an affordability council. We are laser focused on this. We–

BRENNAN: What does that mean? What’s an affordability czar?

BESSENT: Someone who picks the five or eight areas where this administration can make a big difference for working-class Americans.

BRENNAN: OK.

Watch the clip above via Face the Nation on CBS News.