So this is kind of fun, and if I had a crush on the Treasury Secretary before, holy crapperooski, I am head over heels for him now.
The setting is the New York Times DealBook Summit, which the paper was heralding with some very edgy promos prior to the event.
UNGUARDED CONVERSATIONS!
The annual DealBook Summit is back Dec. 3! Join@andrewrsorkin for a day of unguarded conversations with some of the world's most consequential people. Live on stage.
— DealBook (@dealbook) December 2, 2025
Subscribe to the DealBook newsletter for the latest news and updates. https://t.co/AMMnbtrNJj pic.twitter.com/TAu594rC1V
WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE!
Obviously, anyone who was anyONE would be there, or so you would think.
Andrew Sorkin, the NYT financial columnist and CNBC host who founded DealBook in 2001, would also do the onstage honors for interviews of the attending luminaries, as he has from the beginning. Sorkin's been doing chatty updates for the paper from first thing this morning, along with a couple of other reporters piping in with their live takes.
You can feel the excitement building, and really, the list is long and pretty impressive. I only caught the first couple of guests here so that you could get a taste.
Andrew here. Today, Wednesday, is the day: The DealBook Summit begins in a couple of hours. We have an exciting lineup of newsmakers who will discuss the most critical issues of the moment. Please follow along. More below.
The lineup for DealBook Summit 2025
DealBook will be live at our annual summit in New York on Wednesday.
Andrew will kick things off around 9 a.m. Eastern, and the first conversation will get underway shortly after. The DealBook team and reporters from The Times will be reporting live from the conference.
Even if you are not with us, you can follow along on the New York Times home page beginning around 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
Here are the speakers in order of appearance (the conversations that will be streamed live on NYTimes.com are noted in parentheses):
Scott Bessent, U.S. Treasury secretary (livestream)
Brian Armstrong, C.E.O. of Coinbase, and Larry Fink, chairman and C.E.O. of BlackRock
Mary Barra, chair and C.E.O. of G.M.
Lai Ching-te, president of Taiwan
Alex Karp, co-founder and C.E.O. of Palant...
And, well, gracious! Check out that first fellow onstage with Andrew - our very own Secretary of the Treasury, the dapper Scott Bessent.
Way to start the event off with a bang...and did it ever devolve into one.
It was cordial enough at first, with Bessent explaining how he had come around to tariffs after being opposed to them when he worked in the private sector.
'The president was right,' he said. And when pressed on the tariffs going forward, should the current Supreme Court case not be decided in the president's favor, Bessent seemed sure there were other legal avenues available for the president to maintain the status quo as far as the import duties.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday predicted that the administration still will be able to implement its tariff agenda regardless of whether it prevails in a pending case before the Supreme Court.
Repeating assertions he had made prior to the high court hearing a month ago, Bessent cited several sections of 1962 Trade Act that give the president sweeping powers over import duties.
“We can recreate the exact tariff structure with [sections] 301, with 232, with 122,” he said during an onstage interview at The New York Times DealBook Summit.
Asked by host Andrew Ross Sorkin — the founding editor of DealBook and co-host of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” — whether the administration had to implement those measures permanently, Bessent replied, “permanently.”
Section 122 allows for tariff power up to 150 days, but 301 and 232 are less definitive on a time frame. Bessent also cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as providing broad tariff authority, though that is the use under scrutiny by the Supreme Court.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he changed his mind on the merits of tariffs since 2024, when he was a skeptic in the private sector.
— DealBook (@dealbook) December 3, 2025
"I've had an open mind, and I've evolved on this, and that the president's been right," @SecScottBessent told @sorkinsays at the… pic.twitter.com/VIXX3aJNGK
The wide-ranging discussion also touched briefly on the Federal Reserve, where Bessent said he felt part of the problem was that Fed governors do not live in the districts where they vote. He wants that changed.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday he would push a new requirement that the Federal Reserve's regional bank presidents live in their districts for at least three years before taking office, a move that could give the White House more power over the independent agency.
In comments at the New York Times' DealBook Summit, Bessent said that “there is a disconnect with the framing of the Federal Reserve” and added that, “unless someone has lived in their district for three years, we're going to veto them.”
Bessent has stepped up his criticism of the Fed's 12 regional bank presidents in recent weeks after several of them made clear in a series of speeches that they opposed cutting the Fed's key rate at its next meeting in December. President Donald Trump has sharply criticized the Fed for not lowering its short-term interest rate more quickly. When the Fed reduces its rate it can over time lower borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards.
He said that with three or four of the Fed governors living, say, in New York and not their districts, he's 'not sure that's how the Fed was designed.'
After some jawing back and forth over whose inflation rates were worse, red states or blue, Bessent also told Sorkin he was confident the Chinese would uphold their end of the recently negotiated trade deal.
...Mr. Bessent also said that he was confident that China would honor its commitments to buy American farm products as part of a trade truce agreed to last month by Mr. Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. China had stopped buying American soybeans in retaliation for Mr. Trump’s tariffs, hurting U.S. farmers who rely on those sales.
The truce reached in late October resulted in China pledging to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S. this year and Mr. Bessent said it was on pace to do so by the end of February. China had stopped buying American farm products this year, inflicting economic pain on U.S. farmers, but have slowly resumed buying them in recent weeks.
China has also committed to buying at least 25 million metric tons of soybeans in each of the next three years. The 25 million metric tons was in line with the 25 to 30 metric tons that it had purchased in recent years.
Things were humming along fine until Sorkin posited a question about 'The New Normal, vis-à-vis (Are you ready for this?) Trump's health as a follow-up to a Friday NYT article alluding to reports of shorter workdays, dozing off, and a lighter public schedule.
YEAH AND WHOA DAWG
Still cool as a cucumber, our Treasury Secretary proceeded to slice and dice with such masterful economy that Sorkin had no idea those were his paper's corroded entrails splattered on its own stage.
President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent scorched The New York Times from the stage at its own DealBook Summit Wednesday, boldly warning the newspaper would soon be obsolete and accusing it of having aided a “cover up” of President Joe Biden’s health while pushing “100% fake” reporting on Trump’s fitness.
In a live exchange with DealBook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin, who also fronts CNBC’s Squawk Box, Bessent declared the Times is fading into irrelevance while discussing the challenges faced by legacy media.
“I guess the question is: Is this a new normal?” Sorkin asked.
Bessent shot back: “Andrew, there’s no new normal,” adding that he has stopped reading the paper but that the articles sent his way prove to him the outlet is “just this fever swamp.”
“You know, in twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years The New York Times is no longer the paper of record,” he predicted. “I read this article, like ‘President Trump is slowing down. President Trump’s mental capacity –’ It is a hundred percent fake. Like he only called me twice at two in the morning last week instead of three times.”
This is off-the-charts perfection.
NEW: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demolishes The New York Times at their own summit.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 3, 2025
Bessent ripped apart the "fever swamp" New York Times on stage at the New York Times' DealBook Summit.
"I actually don't read the New York Times anymore... occasionally people send me… pic.twitter.com/6ObZJyKcm2
..."I actually don't read the New York Times anymore... occasionally people send me articles and there's just this fever swamp."
"You had what was one of the greatest scandals of all time... Joe Biden's diminished capacity and the cover-up. Where was the New York Times?"
I sure hope someone had a tube of analgesic Neosporin for Sorkin during the break - gaping fleshwounds from unguarded conversations have to hurt.
There is just nothing else to say other than I love that man.
DAY-YUM
This Trump cabinet is tha bomb.
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