The spectacle of a former president being hauled away would not help anyone's confidence: Scott Bessent

Welcome back futures this morning indicating a mixed opening. Take a look at where we stand. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, now at the lows of the morning, down 75 right now in the Dow, the NASDAQ is up 8 and a quarter further into record territory. Yesterday the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 hit record highs. The Nasdaq's up six points. The S&P is down six points. But take a look at yesterday's performance, the Dow finishing just shy of its all time high, up 66 on the session. The NASDAQ and the S&P at all time highs. All three indices up 5.4% or more so far this month. Keeping that may rally intact, joining me right now is former Soros Fund Management Chief Investment Officer and Key Square Capital Management CEO and Founder Scott Besson to back with me this morning. Scott, great to see you. Thank you so much for being here this morning. What do you think is behind this market move here year to date on top of last year as we watch an economy that seems bifurcated at best, You've made the point the high earners are doing well. Not so much for the low earners. Yeah. And. And Maria, that's exactly it. It's a bifurcated economy and you know, several important factors. Here is 1:00. We we have this massive government spending, you know, 6-7 percent of GDP. So that's really what's powering the economy on one side and then on the other side in an election year when there's an incumbent, the incumbent political economic apparatus, you know, keeps providing a lot of liquidity, a lot of fiscal stimulus at which the market likes. And then we also have President Trump ahead in the polls and the market focusing on November 5th and Donald Trump's market friendly policies of Trump tax cuts being extended or perhaps made permanent, lower regulation, energy independence and things being settled down abroad. So you know, we're we're kind of in a Nirvana scenario right now, but it does speak to the two tier economy in Joe Biden's America. You either have assets and the top 20% has never done better or you have debt and you are getting crushed by this inflation. Yeah, for sure. And that's been the case pretty much across the board. The inflation story inflation's up 20% on Joe Biden's watch. This all has implications for the dollar and the US dollar reserves held by other central banks. You know, Kevin Hassett made a comment the other day on the show when he joined me. He said if we see Donald Trump in handcuffs and go to jail because he, you know, messed with this gag order, who would buy a treasury in America? You'll see interest rates spike because people are going to be calling this place a Banana Republic. Why would you ever buy a treasury issued by a Banana Republic? That's how Kevin Hassett sees things right now. And I want to get your take on that because I know that the decline in U.S. dollar reserves held by other central banks is concerning to you. It it is. And look we've we've had 200 years the to build up credibility and the the the US is able to exercise what's called an exorbitant privilege in terms of our borrowings. We have been able to, you know, fund these deficits and you know we we have dual deficits. We have the current account trade deficit and we have a gigantic budget deficit. We are able to do that because of our credibility. But we are starting to see foreign central banks moving out of the dollar. Chinese have sold a massive amount of Treasury bills over the past year and three years, and they're upping their gold holdings. So, you know, this is a very unstable equilibrium because, you know, we're running these massive peacetime deficits. You know, we have never run deficits like this before, either in peacetime or during when we didn't have a recession. So the we depend on foreigners to fund those deficits and if they stop then, you know, interest rates go higher, which is what we've we've seen here. And you know the the spectacle of a former president being the the hold hold away would not help anyone's competence. And you know, I I think that the, you know, the American people people abroad don't believe that this is anything but a show trial. Right. This is just extraordinary. Anyway, you look at it, Scott, what did you make of Biden's tariffs on Chinese imports? You know, the other day Janet Yellen was asked about it and she said something like, well, Trump's tariffs on China were a tax on consumers. But Biden's tariffs on Chinese imports, Well, no, that's not a tax on conservatives. That's targeted. That's what she said. Yeah. Well, look, I I think Secretary Yellen has taken a a lot of controversial positions lately that you know are are not helpful for you know her job of representing the the US Treasury and these tariffs, it's it's me too and it's electioneering is Michigan is one of the most important swing states that there are a lot of EV tariffs obviously. Obviously the Chinese are you know, subsidizing and you know dumping globally with electric vehicles. So, you know, it it was just, you know, a bit of meet Me too and electioneering just like, you know, this incredible 7.7 billion probably illegal student loan forgiveness that we saw today. So, you know, I I think the Biden administration's macro policies have been a disaster for the American people. You know we can see that it it shows in the polls, it shows in the handling of the economy and then they try this series of kind of central planning micro interventions whether it's it's EV tariffs, we're going to cut back on the Student Loans, the you know, we're going to do this illegal forgiveness of student loans. We're going to dump the, you know the the gasoline reserve. You know, Secretary Yellen has taken the Strategic Petroleum Reserve down to a 40 year low and I expect her to do a massive dump the, you know, between now and November 5th. You know this is all central planning and you know at the end of the day it doesn't work. It's all central planning and it's all about the election. That's it. And by the way, these tariffs on EVs, Greg Brown, the Chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions. I saw him the other day. He made a really good point to me. He said to me 100% tariff increases on electric vehicles. Sure, it sounds impressive, right. Well, until you recognize only 7% of the people in the United States are driving electric vehicle vehicles, 2 percent of the imported electric vehicles are coming from China, 2%. OK. So yeah, is it significant? I guess is it consequential? No, 2%, it's not. It's it's one of those things that's a headline ahead of an election but doesn't really hurt China all that much at all. Scott, let me get your take. Bloomberg published this piece last week. It says ex Soros star Scott Besant jockeys with John Paulson to run Trump's Treasury. Obviously, you're on the short list to become Treasury Secretary, should President Trump choose you if that were to happen? Scott, tell us the most important policy measures to you. What policy measures do you believe are most important in a new administration? Yes. So, Maria, before I answer that, I'd like like to make three points is, you know, I think there's no jockeying going on is what I'm trying to do is I think 2024 is our last chance to grow our way out of these debt and deficit problems. So one, I am out just sounding the alarm that we need all hands on deck for 2024. Two, there are no jobs in a Trump administration without Donald Trump winning. So you know I'm out trying to help President Trump winning. I along with a phone named Raynard Jackson who's a Jack Kent acolyte. We're we're hosting 100 and 5200 black business people and entrepreneurs today in DC who are all very curious about the Republican Party. And then three, you know I I have my business and this is an exciting, you know macro as an exciting macro environment as I've seen. So you know that that's what I'm doing. I'm not jockeying, I understand but I understand. But what what I do want to, you know, emphasize is we need to go back to the private sector growth strategy that President Trump had in Trump 1.0. Yeah, is we do. We just got to do that in Trump 2.0. Well, I I like that you're saying growth. That's exactly what we need is, is growth. We're at 1.6% growth in the first quarter according to the last GDP. And if you actually have a focus on growth, well then the policies will reflect that. And that's called lower taxes, that's called, you know I mean that's a lot of things go into that in terms of in terms of that policy. But real quick before you go, Scott, you just said that you're hosting these black entrepreneurs. Did you, are you seeing a change from the black community for President Trump? Yeah, look, I I think that we are seeing the, you know we're we're seeing a a lot of people who are curious. We are, we are seeing the traditional Democratic stronghold of black voters who, you know, they they believe that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have failed them. And, you know, I couldn't agree more is the, you know. So that sounds good. All right. We will leave it there. It's great to see you, Scott. Thanks very much. Please come back soon.