‘Inept, incompetent, craven’: Scott Bessent struggles to clean up the president’s mess

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Scott Bessent speaks at a news conference on 24 August 2026 in Washington. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP View image in fullscreen Scott Bessent speaks at a news conference on 24 August 2026 in Washington. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP US economy ‘Inept, incompetent, craven’: Scott Bessent struggles to clean up the president’s mess There’s little optimism about treasury secretary’s ability to handle Trump’s tariffs, Iran sanctions and colossal US debt

David Smith in Washington Sat 29 Aug 2026 13.00 BST Last modified on Sat 29 Aug 2026 13.01 BST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google H istory remembers Gen Dwight Eisenhower , the supreme commander of the allied forces in Europe during the second world war, for his role in the D-day invasion of Normandy. Whether Scott Bessent will achieve similar posterity as the face of the “economic D-day” in Iran remains to be seen.

The US treasury secretary, already trying to manage a $40tn national debt pile, this week took charge of Donald Trump ’s effort to reverse-engineer his war of choice. Whereas the US would typically take on an adversary with diplomacy, sanctions and military force, in that order, the US president started with a six-month bombing campaign and now hopes that economic isolation can finish the job.

The effort shines a harsh spotlight on Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager and former Democratic donor who the president likes to say is “ central casting ” but critics warn is dangerously out of his depth. The coming months could reveal whether Bessent serves as a constraint on Trump’s worst impulses – or, in fact, enables them beneath a veneer of respectability.

“He is, bar none, the worst treasury secretary in the history of the United States,” said Steve Schmidt , a former political strategist for President George W Bush and the John McCain presidential campaign. “Because the first treasury secretary was a true genius, the distance between Alexander Hamilton and Bessent in evolutionary scale is the difference between a flea and a human being. He is inept, he is incompetent, he is dishonest, he is smug, he is craven.”