Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent struggled to defend former President Donald Trump during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, after Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) confronted him with Trump’s apparent indifference to Americans’ financial struggles.
The Exchange
Hassan asked Bessent, “Do you think about how the American people are paying more for gas, groceries and utilities, since the president clearly said he didn’t?” She referred to Trump’s remark that Americans’ finances were not his concern when questioned about ending his unpopular Iran war. “You speak with the president regularly — are you trying to tell him the truth about how much costs have increased for the American people?”
Bessent responded by holding up a printout of a recent Trump social media post claiming “TRUMP’S MAKING FOOD AFFORDABLE,” alongside questionable data on select grocery items that have not soared in price. “Well, Senator, I’m going to have to disagree with you on some of that, because I have groceries are going down,” Bessent said, despite the largest one-month leap in grocery prices in about four years occurring in April. “And to be clear, since President Trump took office, food price — food, food prices, or as many people like to call them, groceries, food at home in the statistical data, is up 2.5%.”
Hassan’s Rebuttal
Hassan then hit back with a blistering question: “When’s the last time you were in a grocery store?” She noted that the average New Hampshire resident has paid “$3,000 more” for basic goods and services since Trump’s return to office, while the U.S. lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs last year. “So do you tell the president this information or not?” she asked.
Bessent argued that aside from inflation, which he called a “short-term blip,” data on the U.S. economy was “very strong.” Hassan later used Bessent’s argument to make something “very clear” to him: “Neither you nor the president nor this administration are willing to acknowledge how much more people are paying at the gas pump, at the grocery store, in utilities, for health care, for all aspects of American life.”
