Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Joining us for conversation live on Bloomberg TV. The seventeen
Speaker 2: ninth Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besson, Secretary Best and
Speaker 2: it's good to see you, sir, Jonath's good to see
Speaker 2: a warm congratulations from all of us to you. Quite
Speaker 2: an arrival from what was it, Little River, South Carolina.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's an American success story, orly in America.
Speaker 2: To the office of Alexander Hamilinson with some unique experience.
Speaker 2: How is that going to help you, sir, approach some
Speaker 2: of the challenges in this economy.
Speaker 3: Well, Jonathan, the way I look at it, for my career,
Speaker 3: for thirty five years, I've been sitting outside the room
Speaker 3: with my ear up against the door or trying to
Speaker 3: look over the transum, trying to figure out what policy
Speaker 3: makers should do or going to do, and how that
Speaker 3: would affect the markets. Now I'm inside the room trying
Speaker 3: to figure out what everybody outside the room expects us
Speaker 3: to do, how the market's going to react, and what
Speaker 3: the economic and market implications are or short term, but
Speaker 3: more importantly medium term, and how that's going to affect
Speaker 3: the underlying economy.
Speaker 2: We've got a lot to discuss. So let's start with
Speaker 2: the debt market. What people expected you to do, maybe
Speaker 2: was changed some of the issuance for treasury. Something that
Speaker 2: you'd said back last summer about then Secretary Yellen was
Speaker 2: that Yellin had taken control of monetary policy through treasury issuance.
Speaker 2: Then you're basically maintaining her plans. Can you help explain that,
Speaker 2: help us understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 3: Sure, So the previous administration shortened some of the duration,
Speaker 3: and we haven't shortened it further. We've just kept the
Speaker 3: policy in place. And I believe over the medium term
Speaker 3: it's going to play out as it becomes clear that
Speaker 3: everything that President Trump's administration is doing will be disinflationary.
Speaker 3: We're going to bring down energy costs, we're going to
Speaker 3: bring down regulation, what DOSEE is doing in terms of
Speaker 3: cost cutting, and I think once the tax cuts and
Speaker 3: job aacks is made permanent, then you know we can
Speaker 3: have a revenue increase cost decrease. And as you said,
Speaker 3: is the nation's top bond salesman, I got a pretty
Speaker 3: good story.
Speaker 2: So what's the medium term? Help me understand that. What
Speaker 2: is the medium term? And then once you see all
Speaker 2: those things. Let's say those ambitions become reality, then do
Speaker 2: you start to think about term again the debt.
Speaker 3: Sure, but that's a long way off, and we're going
Speaker 3: to see what the market wants. As Lisa noted this
Speaker 3: morning that and it's fun to see someone who believes
Speaker 3: that Fed minutes are exciting that the Fed said that
Speaker 3: they may stop their balance sheet runoff. So you know,
Speaker 3: easier for me to extend duration when I'm not competing
Speaker 3: with another big seller.
Speaker 4: So when do you think that time would be end
Speaker 4: of the year or further down into the administration's term.
Speaker 3: It's going to be. It's going to be path dependent.
Speaker 3: We're still seeing sort of the residual Biden inflation that's
Speaker 3: still coming through. Uh And I think as a the
Speaker 3: market starts to realize what we're doing and inflation starts
Speaker 3: to drop, then we will we will see. So it's
Speaker 3: going to be path dependent. That's the eventual goal. But
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not going to signal it now.
Speaker 4: When you mentioned the Fed minutes, participants indicated yesterday that
Speaker 4: one of the problems they had was they were waiting
Speaker 4: for Trump policies to come into place.
Speaker 5: Do you think that those policies.
Speaker 4: When you think of tariffs, potentially deportations, immigration, this can
Speaker 4: be inflationary. Is it going to hold back the FED
Speaker 4: from cutting rates?
Speaker 3: Well, to the extent the team transitory at the FED
Speaker 3: is still they has any credibility. I would say that tariffs,
Speaker 3: if they have any price adjustments, are the most transitory
Speaker 3: thing there are, So I don't think that should hold
Speaker 3: them back very long. And I would point out that,
Speaker 3: depending on what number you want to use, ten twenty
Speaker 3: million people who came across the border, we had the
Speaker 3: worst inflation of forty years when we added ten or
Speaker 3: twenty million people. So I'm not sure why people are
Speaker 3: saying that it's inflationary to tell them to go home.
Speaker 4: So when you look at team transitory, do you think
Speaker 4: the next move for them would be a cut emory?
Speaker 3: I have said publicly that I will talk about what
Speaker 3: the FED has done. When I was a market commentator
Speaker 3: and investor, I would talk about what they should do.
Speaker 3: Now I will leave it to them, and sure Powell
Speaker 3: and I have a weekly breakfast. We saw each other
Speaker 3: yesterday and I will convey my thoughts there.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about what they have done. We can
Speaker 2: comment on that you said you're willing to They cut
Speaker 2: rights one hundred basis points going into the end of
Speaker 2: last year, and I don't think happened yield to the
Speaker 2: long end rows.
Speaker 6: They didn't decline.
Speaker 2: Do you think Feller reserve easing contributed to high long
Speaker 2: end yields?
Speaker 3: Well, Jonathan, I would just say the point of cutting
Speaker 3: rates is to cut rates. So if they cut rates
Speaker 3: and rates went up, then there probably was something there.
Speaker 3: I thought that the rate cut in September, I said
Speaker 3: it maybe even on your show here, that it was oversized.
Speaker 3: The market responded, But now we're seeing term premium come
Speaker 3: back down, so we'll see what happens from here.
Speaker 1: Do you think the current rate right now is enough
Speaker 1: to bring down ten year yields over time just by
Speaker 1: virtue of being restrictive?
Speaker 3: Again, I'm not going to comment on current policies.
Speaker 1: I am curious you talk about how you do look
Speaker 1: at the ten year yield every single day.
Speaker 5: I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that you're the top bond salesman in the
Speaker 1: United States, and I'm wondering, are you expecting it or
Speaker 1: hoping it to go down from here? Is that necessary
Speaker 1: to reach to achieve your three percent growth target?
Speaker 3: Well, what's necessary are they underlying conditions? So the underlying
Speaker 3: conditions that we need for yous to come down for
Speaker 3: growth to go back up. We've got this affordability crisis
Speaker 3: in housing, We've got an affordability crisis in the auto payments.
Speaker 3: So one thing that would be very stimuative. And as
Speaker 3: Jonathan mentioned earlier, the tenures come down. Our rates have
Speaker 3: come down every week since Donald Trump's been president. So
Speaker 3: if we can continue that for fifty two weeks, that'd
Speaker 3: be great, and it'd be very it would be a
Speaker 3: win for the American people, which at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, that is our goal. So if we do
Speaker 3: what we say we're going to do, if we can
Speaker 3: rein in the budget deficit, if we have non inflationary growth,
Speaker 3: if we bring down energy prices, and I think now
Speaker 3: that I have the numbers on the inside, there was
Speaker 3: a big contributor to this massive inflation was a regulation.
Speaker 3: I think you said earlier this morning that the what
Speaker 3: if these things cause inflation? You know some aszam Marie
Speaker 3: just said, some of the policies, Well, what really happened
Speaker 3: under the previous administration was you created a demand shock
Speaker 3: with government spending, but it was met by supply constraints
Speaker 3: as there was more regulation and Trump one point zero
Speaker 3: we created demand shock with tax cuts and it was
Speaker 3: met by a supply side response of less regulation. So
Speaker 3: you know, the Biden administration created this inflation that a
Speaker 3: demand shock and constraining supply is the ultimate recipe for inflation.
Speaker 2: So and now you want to count spending the DOGE program,
Speaker 2: let's talk about it. You've called it one of the
Speaker 2: most important audits to government ever. You remember the Clinton
Speaker 2: tried something similar, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. How
Speaker 2: different will this be and what kind of cost savings
Speaker 2: are even the team thinking about?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and John, I can go all the way back
Speaker 3: the given my tenure in the business, and go all
Speaker 3: the way back to the eighties to the Grace Commission,
Speaker 3: and they had some great the ideas, most of them
Speaker 3: not implemented. I think that the Clinton Gore initiative, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of that was academics. So this is
Speaker 3: people on the ground all areas of government, and it's
Speaker 3: moving quickly. And I really do think it's unfortunate that
Speaker 3: it's been lampooned and they attack the way it has.
Speaker 3: But when it's being attacked like this. It tells me
Speaker 3: that there are a lot of entrenched interest in terms.
Speaker 3: When you're moving people's cheese, they don't like it, and
Speaker 3: it's not their cheese, it's the American people's cheese.
Speaker 4: Well, how about putting some of that cheese back into
Speaker 4: American people's pockets. How inflationary would those five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: potential DOGE checks be that the President spoke about yesterday.
Speaker 3: Well, I think again that if we are bringing down
Speaker 3: energy prices, if we are cutting the regulation and so
Speaker 3: I think that it's a to quote the Vice President
Speaker 3: during the campaign, I think it's holistic, and I think
Speaker 3: that it's all kind of one mosaic. If you were
Speaker 3: to inject a lot of money into the economy, because Emery,
Speaker 3: think about this, that we are at this massive deficit
Speaker 3: to GDP six point seven almost seven percent, So what
Speaker 3: will be happening on one side, You'll be bringing down
Speaker 3: that spending in the economy. So very easy mental model
Speaker 3: is every three hundred billion is about one percent of GDP.
Speaker 3: So every three hundred billion that DOGE is able to save,
Speaker 3: could you put that back in the economy into people's pockets.
Speaker 4: One thing potentially that could happen, and people are questioning
Speaker 4: it is maybe remarking gold. Elon Musk, who's leading DOGE,
Speaker 4: was talking about maybe going to Fort Knox make sure
Speaker 4: those gold reserves are there. That comes under your purview.
Speaker 4: Do you have any plans to visit Kentucky?
Speaker 3: I don't have any plans. I can tell you that
Speaker 3: we do an audit every year. I can tell the
Speaker 3: American people on camera right now that there was a
Speaker 3: report September thirtieth, twenty twenty four. All the gold is there.
Speaker 3: Any US senator who wants to come and visit it
Speaker 3: can arrange a visit through our office.
Speaker 4: Gold was your biggest holding when you were a hedge
Speaker 4: fund manager before you divested to become the Treasury secretary.
Speaker 4: So you know the value of where gold is right
Speaker 4: now versus where it's marked on its balance sheet just
Speaker 4: north of forty dollars an ounce it's close to three thousand.
Speaker 4: Is it under consideration for this administration to revalue gold?
Speaker 3: I think that somehow when we were telling about the
Speaker 3: Sovereign Wealth Fund and I said monetize the balance sheet,
Speaker 3: I can promise you that's not what I had in mind.
Speaker 5: So it's not under consideration, not on the table.
Speaker 3: That's not what I had of mine.
Speaker 1: When you look at the DOGE savings that you have
Speaker 1: so far, how much is that going to go to
Speaker 1: offset some of the tax extensions that we see. What
Speaker 1: other savings are you looking at that potentially are crucial?
Speaker 3: Well, again, they're just getting started. And one of the
Speaker 3: shocking things to me has been when we talk about waste,
Speaker 3: fraud and abuse, we all think of what comes out
Speaker 3: of d C. We think of some waste and fraud
Speaker 3: and friction costs. Because one way to think about this
Speaker 3: is twenty five percent of the US economy flows through
Speaker 3: Washington d C. So if we can cut the friction
Speaker 3: on that, that's a lot of savings. What we are
Speaker 3: discovering now in waste fraud and abuse, there may be
Speaker 3: much more fraud going on than we thought. And I
Speaker 3: think you're going to be hearing about that over the
Speaker 3: coming week.
Speaker 6: Can we hear about it now?
Speaker 3: I think you're gonna hear about it on the coming weeks.
Speaker 2: What kind of fraud are you thinking about? What kind
Speaker 2: of fraud have you identified?
Speaker 3: Again, i'd refer you to so now out of you,
Speaker 3: I'd refer you to some of the statements by Lee
Speaker 3: Zelden at the EPA.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, we can build on that in the weeks
Speaker 2: to come. I can refer to you some comments from
Speaker 2: the Washington Post on defense cuts.
Speaker 6: They're reporting that Pt.
Speaker 2: Hexseth, the Defense Secretary or the senior leaders of the
Speaker 2: Pentagon and throughout the US military to develop plans for
Speaker 2: cutting eight percent from the defense budget in each of
Speaker 2: the next five years.
Speaker 6: You're aware of that plan.
Speaker 3: I'm in contact with Secretary Hegesits, and we're working very closely.
Speaker 3: And again, I'm not going to jump the gun here
Speaker 3: on TV, but I think everything's on the table and
Speaker 3: can things work more efficiently.
Speaker 5: When it comes to the defense budget.
Speaker 4: We've spent more last year on our interest payments than defense.
Speaker 4: So are you hoping for twenty twenty five to spend
Speaker 4: more on defense than the interest payments?
Speaker 3: Well, it would depend how we got there too. That
Speaker 3: does defense spending go down, does the interest go down?
Speaker 3: We'll see what that calculus is.
Speaker 2: I've got to focus on tariffs too. Revenue raising is
Speaker 2: part of that story. Reciprocity, national security. You want fair trade,
Speaker 2: but that we all want fair trade. The President has
Speaker 2: discussed reciprocal tariffs. He's mentioned the Europeans also offered to
Speaker 2: drop auto tariffs. Could we start there. Have the Europeans
Speaker 2: actually made that offer? Can you confirm that.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen that, but possible. I think that good
Speaker 3: thing about President Trump's negotiating style is people put things
Speaker 3: that were not on the table before on the table
Speaker 3: very quickly.
Speaker 4: So that would be reciprocity and maybe negotiating. But to
Speaker 4: offset the tax cuts, where's the revenue raising.
Speaker 3: So there could be Not everyone is going to give
Speaker 3: on every point, right, So the Europeans seemingly put forward
Speaker 3: very quickly auto terrorists, but not every country is going
Speaker 3: to do that. My view, as I've said before, China
Speaker 3: is the most imbalanced, unbalanced economy in the history of
Speaker 3: the world, and they are trying to export their way
Speaker 3: out of what is a very serious recession, and the
Speaker 3: rest of the world can't do that. They can't dump
Speaker 3: Chinese goods. They're going to have to rebalance their economy.
Speaker 3: So tariffs on Chinese goods went up ten percent, and
Speaker 3: a lot of that again Mexico, Canada, China. That was
Speaker 3: in response to the fentanyl crisis.
Speaker 4: China is the only one though that those terriffs have
Speaker 4: actually stayed in place.
Speaker 5: Is that the opening salvo?
Speaker 4: How high do you think Trump wants to go when
Speaker 4: it comes to Chinese terraffs Well, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not going to give away as negotiating hand on TV.
Speaker 3: I do have my first call with my Chinese counterpart
Speaker 3: tomorrow morning, so I look forward to a very productive discussion.
Speaker 5: What's the first point you want to bring up?
Speaker 3: That we want to work together? And as we said,
Speaker 3: a lot of the precursor ingredients from finanol originate in China,
Speaker 3: so we really want to put a stop to that
Speaker 3: very quickly.
Speaker 2: Historically, there's been some currency concerns with regards to China
Speaker 2: as well. In the conversations we had you before taking
Speaker 2: up this post with you, you mentioned that some countries,
Speaker 2: some currencies are undervalued.
Speaker 6: Is China one of them? Is that something you'd like
Speaker 6: to remedy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Jonathan, what I've said is, make no mistake,
Speaker 3: the US still has a strong dollar policy, but that
Speaker 3: does not mean that bilaterally other countries can weaken their
Speaker 3: currencies versus the dollar or manipulate their currencies. But specifically
Speaker 3: on China, China is a very difficult currency to value
Speaker 3: because I really think that when we think about the
Speaker 3: value of the R and B, it's in three different equilibrium.
Speaker 3: On any academic model, say purchasing power parity, it's cheap.
Speaker 3: On the other side, you have one point four billion
Speaker 3: people who are subject to capital can controls and they
Speaker 3: want to get some of their money out of the country.
Speaker 3: And then you have what I would call the X factor.
Speaker 3: If you put money into China today, what's your belief
Speaker 3: that you will get it out in two, three, four years.
Speaker 3: So it's very difficult to come up with a point
Speaker 3: value of the currency.
Speaker 1: You've talked about the desire to have a strong dollar
Speaker 1: policy for the United States, But is a strong dollar
Speaker 1: at odds with the idea of bringing industrial production back
Speaker 1: to the United States and sort of speaks to some
Speaker 1: of the concerns about other countries trying to devalue their currencies.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that we will necessarily have a strong
Speaker 3: dollar if we run good policies, and I think we're
Speaker 3: going to run good policies if we if we cut
Speaker 3: the trade deficits. When you think about the trade deficit
Speaker 3: is a combination of terms of trade value, the dollar,
Speaker 3: and our own budget deficits. So if we bring down
Speaker 3: the budget deficit, then I think everyone if we are deregulating,
Speaker 3: if we make the tax cuts permanent, if we make
Speaker 3: the US more bent business friendly, then everyone, all the
Speaker 3: reserve managers in the world, all the private investors are
Speaker 3: going to want a piece of that, and the dollar
Speaker 3: will be strong. But we will be able to push
Speaker 3: back on that through good policies, through productivity, the US productivity.
Speaker 3: I think that I've been meeting with a lot of
Speaker 3: the tech leaders lately, and I think we are very
Speaker 3: close to the cusp of this AI finally coming into
Speaker 3: the productivity numbers. Do you think that a.
Speaker 1: Strong dollar is necessary in order to offset some of
Speaker 1: the costs that could be otherwise associated with the tariffs.
Speaker 3: Traditional economic theory would tell you that the dollar strengthens
Speaker 3: on the tariffs. Who knows what we've already seen since
Speaker 3: the dollar appreciation since November. Fit markets live in the future,
Speaker 3: so have we already priced in some of that? And
Speaker 3: on the other side, what we are trying to do
Speaker 3: is to get other economies to successfully rebalance. My conversation
Speaker 3: tomorrow with my and this is really just an introductory conversation,
Speaker 3: but as we go down the road, the Chinese need
Speaker 3: to rebalance their economy in favor of consumption, that they
Speaker 3: are suppressing the consumer in favor of the business community.
Speaker 3: So as that happens, then they will increase their demand.
Speaker 3: Same thing in Europe, you know Mario Drogy For any
Speaker 3: of your viewers who didn't see it, Mario Drogy had
Speaker 3: a fantastic editorial this weekend in the Financial Times where
Speaker 3: he said, look, we have put the equivalent of more
Speaker 3: terrorists on ourselves or terraces on ourselves then the US
Speaker 3: could ever contemplate. So could you get a very strong
Speaker 3: euro Somehow they had an immaculate deregulation just quickly.
Speaker 4: You're having this call with your Chinese counterpart. Will you
Speaker 4: see him next week at the G twenty Finance Minister's meeting.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to Cape Town due to some domestic considerations.
Speaker 3: I actually think that he's not attending either.
Speaker 6: So is that what he's told you?
Speaker 3: This is the readout that we've gotten.
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 3: So and again I also believe several of my other
Speaker 3: counterparts won't be there. I have been speaking in contact
Speaker 3: with them regularly, and then I will be seeing them
Speaker 3: at the spring IMF World Bank meetings in DC.
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to you about national security as well,
Speaker 2: and the dollar has certainly got a role to plan
Speaker 2: on that. From the sanctions policy of the United States
Speaker 2: as we look back, do you think that's been misused?
Speaker 3: Excellent question, Jonathan that when I came into Treasury, if
Speaker 3: you think about sort of treasury is five pieces. There's
Speaker 3: irs on one side, the men on the other. But
Speaker 3: the main focus of in the building at Treasury is
Speaker 3: domestic finance, international finance. That's what I've been doing for
Speaker 3: my career for thirty five years. I was able to
Speaker 3: hit the ground running on that. The what we call
Speaker 3: TFI terrorism finance is where my biggest learning curve is.
Speaker 3: So I'm spending a lot of time on that, and
Speaker 3: I'm reviewing the sanctions policies. Why do we do what
Speaker 3: we do? Have they been effective? Are we running a
Speaker 3: twenty first century program as opposed to some outdated modalities?
Speaker 4: Well, the current sanctions are in place, and places like
Speaker 4: Russia to try to get Puttin to negotiating table. You
Speaker 4: are intricately involved in these in this deal. You were
Speaker 4: just in Kiev. You met with President Zelenski. Trump yesterday
Speaker 4: called zelen Is he a dictator without these elections and
Speaker 4: said that he better move fast or he's not going
Speaker 4: to have a country left. Does this language make it
Speaker 4: harder for you to get that minerals deal over the
Speaker 4: finish line?
Speaker 3: Well, look, I think President Vilensky unfortunately escalated and has
Speaker 3: put some daylight between the escalating that a lot of
Speaker 3: his remarks in Munich I thought were inappropriate. President Zelenski,
Speaker 3: when I met with him, assured me that he'd be
Speaker 3: the signing the minerals deal in Munich. He has not.
Speaker 3: And look, the real purpose here, and I think it's
Speaker 3: turned into this media circus that President Trump had a
Speaker 3: very elegant plan, and it was bring the Ukrainians closer
Speaker 3: to the US. Let's do this economic deal. And the
Speaker 3: even Carl Rove in the Wall Street Journal this morning
Speaker 3: approves of it that the US US with greater economic
Speaker 3: interest in Ukraine, provides a security shield. So the sequencing
Speaker 3: of what was going to happen was bring the Ukrainians
Speaker 3: closer to the US through economic ties, convince the American
Speaker 3: people and the American public, get them onside, and then
Speaker 3: tell the Russians go to the negotiating table with a
Speaker 3: very fulsome message that if we need to, we will
Speaker 3: take sanctions up.
Speaker 4: Well, what about tapping the Russian frozen assets and three
Speaker 4: hundred billion dollars? Would you force your European counterparts to
Speaker 4: not just have them frozen, but actually tap them. Trump
Speaker 4: talks about repaying the American taxpayer. Shouldn't Russia be a
Speaker 4: part of that.
Speaker 3: Well, what's happening now is they are being tapped. So
Speaker 3: the returns from interest, the returns from the freezed asset pile,
Speaker 3: is going to pay the Europeans. You know, what's very
Speaker 3: important to understand here is everything the US has done
Speaker 3: to date that the American people, the American taxpayer is
Speaker 3: grant the Europeans. Roughly half of what they've done are loans,
Speaker 3: and the runoff from the frozen assets is being used
Speaker 3: to repay European loans.
Speaker 2: Have you communicated that to the Europeans? The europe sent
Speaker 2: with them?
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 6: Have you communicated the Europeans the europe sent with them?
Speaker 3: I think vice president of Vans that are a pretty
Speaker 3: good job in Unich.
Speaker 2: Do you think they understand that the United States is
Speaker 2: running a deficit of north of six percent, close to
Speaker 2: seven percent, and that the budget for defense is north
Speaker 2: of eight hundred billion dollars do they think Do you
Speaker 2: think they understand the gravity at the moment in the
Speaker 2: United States the US perspective.
Speaker 3: Look, I think that they understand that President Trump during
Speaker 3: his first term this term, Vice President Vance and the
Speaker 3: entire security apparatus had told them that many of the
Speaker 3: countries are deficient in their NATO spending and they need
Speaker 3: to come up. When I went to Ukraine, you're fly
Speaker 3: into Poland. Poland is spending almost five percent of GDP
Speaker 3: on defense. And look at Poland sitting next to Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Poland is one of the great economics success stories in
Speaker 3: the past thirty years after China. They've had the fastest growth.
Speaker 3: So why couldn't Ukraine, with some US capital ingenuity know
Speaker 3: how and root out some of the corruption do as
Speaker 3: well as their neighbors done.
Speaker 2: If Europe spends more, will it allow Americans to come
Speaker 2: back on defense spending?
Speaker 6: Is that the automate goal?
Speaker 3: The ultimate goal is for the Europeans to come up
Speaker 3: to where they've said that they are going to and
Speaker 3: to provide their share of the NATO spending.
Speaker 4: You mentioned sanctions, So do you have both on the
Speaker 4: table ready to go? A sanctions ramp up or wind
Speaker 4: down on Russia, depending how these talks go.
Speaker 3: I think that'd be a very good characterization.
Speaker 4: When it comes to the talks, Trump still thinks he's
Speaker 4: going to meet with Putin. He said probably by the
Speaker 4: end of the month. The end of the month is
Speaker 4: next week. Are you preparing for that.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to give away the timetable, but the
Speaker 3: president is committed to ending this conflict very quickly. And
Speaker 3: I will tell you you're in Kiev, I went to
Speaker 3: a children's hospital that had been bombed. And this was
Speaker 3: not a children's hospital where you take your child if
Speaker 3: he or she scrapes her like this.
Speaker 4: So you can imagine I did that trip that you're
Speaker 4: talking about just a few months ago. You can imagine
Speaker 4: why they haven't had elections in right. They're living in
Speaker 4: this martial.
Speaker 3: Law they are, and it's probably a necessary, probably necessary
Speaker 3: to move forward with the democratic process.
Speaker 2: We've covered a lot of topics. One name that has
Speaker 2: not come up up very much is Elon Musk. Let's
Speaker 2: finish there. You've had some tremendous colleagues in your experience
Speaker 2: over your career, including the great investor Stanley Drunken, Miller.
Speaker 2: You've worked alongside Donald Trump through the campaign. Can you
Speaker 2: just describe what it's like to work with someone like
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, someone as successful an American business Just what's
Speaker 2: that like day to day?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Look, Elon Musk, like stand Druck and Miller, like
Speaker 3: I always compare the great business people to great athletes.
Speaker 3: They keep their eye on the prize, whether that whether
Speaker 3: he's the Messy or Michael the Messy or Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3: He is focused and his energy levels unbelievable, and he's
Speaker 3: gotten to where he has because everything's on the table.
Speaker 3: There's always this examination of why are we doing it
Speaker 3: this way? Why are we doing what we're doing? And
Speaker 3: most of all, if something's not working, let's fix it.
Speaker 4: You know, Sam Altman was on Bloomberg TV just two
Speaker 4: weeks ago and called Elon Muss insecure.
Speaker 5: Do you view him as much?
Speaker 3: I'm not going to get into the tech magnet the
Speaker 3: kind of slap best.
Speaker 6: Secondly best, and I would say that's wise.
Speaker 2: He is drawing criticism, though, when you and the administration
Speaker 2: come out and pick out the various things where money
Speaker 2: is being wasted on, I think we can all agree
Speaker 2: that that's a waste of money.
Speaker 6: Well, there might be some concern.
Speaker 2: Is the way that some people are being laid off
Speaker 2: in Washington that lacks some dignity?
Speaker 6: Could you comment on that today.
Speaker 3: Look, I think that there are many fine public servants,
Speaker 3: but I think that I've been in Washington's three or
Speaker 3: four weeks now, and there's a real bias towards the
Speaker 3: status quo. And if you don't move quickly, then then
Speaker 3: the lobbyists get involved, the entrenched interest, and it's impossible
Speaker 3: to get anything. So, you know, any anyone who has
Speaker 3: experienced uh in financial hardship, the any kind of the
Speaker 3: mental duress, uh, you know, I'm sorry for them, But
Speaker 3: that's also what the average American experiences every day. Most
Speaker 3: of us. You know, you all come to work, you
Speaker 3: want good ratings, the you know you uh you get
Speaker 3: a performance readout, you really push forward. And I can
Speaker 3: tell you that in Treasury, I have been so impressed
Speaker 3: with the quality of the permanent staff and I want
Speaker 3: to get everybody back to the office and a lot
Speaker 3: a lot of people are on board with that.
Speaker 4: When it comes to your prior life, you didn't have
Speaker 4: a boss. You said it would be like atrophy if
Speaker 4: you weren't trading financial markets every single day. What is
Speaker 4: it like now to be in this position where you
Speaker 4: make decisions that people can trade against what you're doing,
Speaker 4: and you also have a boss that's pretty close to
Speaker 4: you in terms of the Treasury Department in the West Wing.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I only had my own firm for eight years,
Speaker 3: so I worked with mister So with Stan Druckenmuller, and
Speaker 3: it's a great feedback mechanism. And I think I had
Speaker 3: the best position in DC. I'm on the White House
Speaker 3: camp campus. We have a great staff in Treasury. I
Speaker 3: can be in the Oval in four minutes and so
Speaker 3: there's proximity. And again, not like Elon Musk, President Trump
Speaker 3: is committed to shaking up the status quo. He came
Speaker 3: in with a mandate and he's moving on it very quickly.
Speaker 2: You're a total gentleman, and you've been very gracious with
Speaker 2: your time. Thanks for being a good friend to this
Speaker 2: program over the last year. Secretary best in there at
Speaker 2: the Treasury secretly best and thank you, sir,