Washington (AP): President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he’ll nominate hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, an advocate the deficit reduction, to serve as his next treasury secretary.
Trump also said he would nominate Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a position Vought held during Trump’s first presidency. Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that he tried to distance himself from during the campaign.
The announcements showed how Trump was fleshing out the financial side of his new administration. Although Bessent is closely aligned with Wall Street and could earn bipartisan support, Vought is known as a Republican hardliner.
Trump said Bessent would “help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States,” while Vought “knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government.”
Bessent and Vought were only two of several personnel decisions that Trump disclosed Friday evening.
Trump said he chose Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican, as his labor secretary, and Scott Turner, a former football player who worked in Trump’s first administration, as his housing secretary.
In addition, Trump rounded out his health team. He chose Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a general practitioner and Fox News contributor, to be surgeon general; Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon, as head of the Food and Drug Administration. Trump previously said he would nominate Robert F Kennedy Jr, a longtime spreader of conspiracy theories about vaccines, as health secretary.
Alex Wong was named as principal deputy national security adviser, while Sebastian Gorka will serve as senior director for counterterrorism. Wong worked on issues involving Asia during Trump’s first term, and Gorka is a conservative commentator who spent less than a year in Trump’s White House.
Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on and off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary.
He told Bloomberg in August that attacking the U.S. national debt should be a priority, which includes slashing government programs and other spending.
“This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then.
As of Nov. 8, the national debt stands at $35.94 trillion, with both the Trump and Biden administrations having added to it. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, while the Biden administration increased the national debt by $4.3 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog.
Even as he pushes to lower the national debt by stopping spending, Bessent has backed extending provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which Trump signed into law in his first year in office. Estimates from various economic analyses of the costs of the various tax cuts range between nearly $6 trillion and $10 trillion over 10 years. Nearly all of the law’s provisions are set to expire at the end of 2025.
Before becoming a Trump donor and adviser, Bessent donated to various Democratic causes in the early 2000s, notably Al Gore’s presidential run. He also worked for George Soros, a major supporter of Democrats. Bessent had an influential role in Soros’ London operations, including his famous 1992 bet against the pound, which generated huge profits on “Black Wednesday,” when the pound was de-linked from European currencies.
Bessent’s selection wasn’t surprising; he had been among the names floated for the treasury secretary role. At an October Detroit Economic Club event, Trump called Bessent “one of the top analysts on Wall Street.”
Bessent told Bloomberg in August that he views tariffs as a “one time price adjustment” and “not inflationary,” and tariffs imposed during a second Trump administration would be directed primarily at China. And he wrote in a Fox News op-ed this week that tariffs are “a useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy objectives,” such as encouraging allies to spend more on defense or deterring military aggression.
