Treasury Secretary Scott Becent on Tuesday tried to alleviate concerns about the state of the economy after saying this weekend that there is “no guarantee” about the recession.
In an interview Tuesday about Fox Business Network's “Mornings With Maria,” Anchor Maria Bartiromo gave him the opportunity to address comments from Sunday's interview with Kristen Welker about “Meet the Press.”
“The other day you were asked by another outlet. Can you guarantee we will not have a recession?” Baltiromo said. “And you wanted to talk about it this morning.”
“Yeah, well, that was a ridiculous question. Can I guarantee there will be no recession? I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee that a journalist who asked me the question that her news program would be in a year's time, asked me,” replied Bescent.
“But what I can assure you is that there's no reason why we don't have to be in a recession,” he continued.
Bescent touted the economy and knocked the media for explaining he underestimated the merits of the economy.
“The first quarter economy is doing better than the media reports,” Bescent said. “I think we're looking at very good underlying data from credit card companies' banks. The airlines that reported some bad passenger numbers are from federal employees who are not currently flying.
“So the fundamental economy is healthy,” he continued. “There's no reason to have to have a recession.”
Bessent has reiterated his position from rewinding excess spending, but ultimately the Trump administration is hampering “it would have been a financial crisis.”
“You can pause if you go from this incredible level of government spending, but that's unsustainable. I'm on the show that we can guarantee, if we were, we would have been in a financial crisis, and President Trump put the brakes on this.” “We'll manage this spending. We're going to take the manufacturing home and make this country more affordable for working Americans.”
On Sunday, Welker asked Bescent if he could guarantee Americans here. We guarantee that President Trump's watch will not be recession-free.”
Bessent replied, “Who would have predicted Covid, and who would have any assurances?”
“So I can predict – I'm putting in a durable, robust policy,” Bessent later added. “And there could be adjustments? Because this massive government spending we had, if it continues, we'll have to pull our country away from it.”
