Does Treasury Secretary and human-sized Ambien Scott Bessent have an anger management problem?
We ask because this Politico report is the second one we’ve seen since April about Bessent getting into a shouting match with another Trump administration official that led to the Treasury Secretary threatening to do bodily harm to his opponent. Scott, bubbe, one word: decaf.
The object of Bessent’s affection was Bill Pulte, the insane director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who has been trawling through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage records in search of any financial dirt he can use for a trumped-up criminal investigation of Donald Trump’s enemies. About which more in a minute.
The Bessent-Pulte dustup came last Wednesday at the grand opening of Executive Branch, an exclusive club in Georgetown for the “MAGA elite.” Because there are not enough country clubs and Bohemian Groves for conservative billionaires to suck each other off away from the prying eyes of the hoi polloi, we guess.
Bessent and Pulte were both guests at the opening, and everything was fine until partway through the cocktail hour, when the former maybe got a couple of Fuzzy Navels in him and decided to confront the latter over rumors that Pulte had been bad-mouthing him to Trump:
“Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you,” Bessent told Pulte. “I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face.” …
“It’s either me or him,” Bessent said to [club co-owner] Malik. “You tell me who’s getting the fuck out of here.”
“Or,” he added, “we could go outside.”
“To do what?” asked Pulte. “To talk?”
“No,” Bessent replied. “I’m going to fucking beat your ass.”
Is it possible that Pete Hegseth is only the second-most embarrassing drunk idiot in Trump’s Cabinet? Probably not, but maybe he has competition?
Bessent and Pulte have reportedly been at odds for months. Pulte has been allegedly inserting himself into financial matters that Bessent considers to be his domain. Additionally, Pulte is close to Howard Lutnick, the hyperactive labradoodle Trump installed as Secretary of Commerce. Lutnick and Bessent have some bad blood from the presidential transition when both vied for the Treasury secretary job. Trump went with Bessent partly because he comes off as more soft-spoken and could therefore be a calming influence on financial markets. So long as he doesn’t run into them during cocktail hour, we guess.
As we mentioned, this is the second reported shouting match Bessent has gotten into with a high-level Trump official. The first was in April, when he and Elon Musk went at it in the West Wing. As The Atlantic reported at the time:
“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was shouting at Elon Musk in the halls of the West Wing last month, loud enough for Donald Trump to hear and in a language that he could certainly understand.
Granted, we’ve all wanted to yell fuck you right in Elon Musk’s stupid face. Really, that’s probably one of the milder oaths we want to yell at him.
Musk also reportedly tried to hit Bessent with a shoulder right in his rib cage, which must have been a sight, before other officials in the vicinity jumped in and separated them. The two men were fighting because Musk had allegedly gone behind Bessent’s back to push his own choice to be the acting commissioner of the IRS. Bessent, not unreasonably, thought the choice should be up the Treasury secretary, not the overgrown ketamine clown who can’t seem to keep his company’s rockets from exploding upon takeoff.
Trump, because he’s a terrible boss, went with Musk’s choice for all of three days before pushing him out to make way for Bessent’s guy. Then that guy made way for a permanent replacement, who lasted all of two months before getting pushed out himself so the job could be taken over by … Scott Bessent. At least until Trump nominates a new permanent replacement, who will probably last for about a week or until Bessent gets annoyed with him, whichever comes first.
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All this fighting belies the public image Bessent has tried to cultivate as a mature, unruffled adult in the room, but which usually comes off as making him look like the smuggest student in a fourth-tier MBA program.
Last week’s argument at Executive Branch ended when one of the owners of the club stepped in and separated Bessent and Pulte, making sure they were seated at opposite ends of the dinner table like a couple of toddlers in time-out. Which we suppose is better than how past Treasury secretaries have dealt with such conflicts: by dying in a duel with pistols at dawn in New Jersey.
If anyone should be mad at Pulte, it is his father and stepmother for the way the official’s pursuit of financial dirt on Trump’s enemies managed to ensnare them. Whoops! Thanksgiving is going to be awkward!
Pulte has been apparently trawling through mortgage information and accusing people Trump hates of committing fraud by claiming multiple homes as primary residences in order to get better interest rates on their mortgages. So far, he has gone after Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Tish James, and Federal Reserve Commissioner Lisa Cook.
That last one might be particularly egregious. Trump wants to fire Cook and replace her with some toady who will push for an interest rate cut. Since even the Supreme Court, which almost never sees some Trump malfeasance it won’t validate, said he lacks the power to do so, he needs one of his toadies to come up with ways to pressure the commissioner to resign. And presto! There is Pulte ready to do his bidding, finding some discrepancy in some mortgage documents, and referring the situation to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution.
But whoops! Looks as if Pulte’s father and stepmother have been claiming a separate break, the “homestead exemption,” which grants property tax breaks for a person’s primary residence, for homes in both Michigan and Florida:
Local tax officials in both states told Reuters that claiming more than one home as a primary residence isn’t generally allowed in their jurisdictions and could be punishable by fines or back taxes. After Reuters contacted tax officials in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, to inquire about the dual claims, Darrin Kraatz, director of assessing, on Thursday said the township “as of today” would revoke the exemption on the Pultes’ residence there.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, jerks.
To top it off, the Pultes apparently rented out the Michigan house earlier this year, which also violates the terms of the exemption. Keep an eye out for that revised property tax bill!
This is all fun because Pulte has been all over right-wing media and X in recent weeks sneering about how seriously he takes financial fraud in real estate, that he’s cracking down on scofflaws, so all (Democratic) violators better start calling their lawyers. Do his parents vote Democrat? Or does he simply still resent having a curfew in high school?
There is also an exceptional irony here in that Pulte is doing this on behalf of a man who lost a civil case and was fined nearly half a billion dollars for fiddling with property valuations to get better mortgage terms and lower property taxes on his real estate holdings for decades. (The fine recently got tossed out for being excessive, but the conviction stands. Unfortunately, so does the convicted felon’s election.)
We’d yell about hypocrisy, but that’s beside the point. The real point is that these accusations are all bullshit, of course. Pulte’s just a hardcore MAGA guy who will lick Trump’s boots in exchange for a pat on the head.
Anyway, that’s whose ass Scott Bessent wants to kick this week. He should probably be careful; he’s a billionaire who likely owns multiple homes. Wouldn’t want Bill Pulte to catch him red-handed doing something Bill Pulte’s parents also did.
OPEN THREAD!
[POLITICO / The Atlantic / HuffPo]
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