{"id":281905,"date":"2025-11-09T20:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/281905\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T20:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:25:12","slug":"bessent-erupts-in-shouting-match-with-trumps-nemesis-abc-news-anchor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/281905\/","title":{"rendered":"Bessent Erupts in Shouting Match With Trump\u2019s Nemesis ABC News Anchor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Bessent<\/a>\u2018s interview with George Stephanopoulos<\/a> quickly devolved into a verbal sparring match on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Treasury Secretary appeared on This Week and spent a good portion of his interview speaking over and throwing jabs at the ABC<\/a> host.<\/p>\n

Tensions rose when Stephanopolous asked about the government shutdown<\/a>, with the duo raising their voices while Bessent derailed into bashing the former Democratic advisor\u2019s book sales.<\/p>\n

\"ScottScott Bessent and George Stephanopoulos quickly devolved into arguing during a discussion about the shutdown. ABC <\/p>\n

Stephanopoulos opened a segment about the shutdown, asking Bessent what he thought about President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s fixation on scrapping the Senate filibuster<\/a> in order to push votes through.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that the best way to end this shutdown right now? Is that what the administration position is?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, George, the best way to do it…\u201d Bessent began, before abandoning the question and opting to attack Stephanopoulos\u2019 political career. <\/p>\n

Stephanopoulos held a senior advising position during the first Clinton administration and later wrote a book, All Too Human: A Political Education, about the experience. <\/p>\n

\"ScottAsked about Trump’s filibuster idea, Bessent instead went on a rant about Stephanopoulos calling Republicans ‘terrorists.’ ABC <\/p>\n

Bessent evaded discussing the shutdown by referencing the one that took place nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, you were involved in a lot of these in the nineties,\u201d Bessent said. \u201cAnd you know, you basically called the Republicans terrorists and, you know, you said that it is not the responsible party that keeps the government closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessent was attempting to use analysis Stephanopoulos made decades ago regarding President Bill Clinton<\/a>\u2019s 1995-96 shutdowns to blame Democrats today for the record-breaking shutdown under Trump. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo what we need is five, brave, moderate Democratic senators to cross the aisle,\u201d Bessent continued. \u201cBecause right now it is fifty-two to three, five Democrats could cross the aisle and reopen the government. That\u2019s the best way to do it, George.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ScottStephanopoulos called Bessent’s words a ‘mischaracterization of history,’ after the duo whiled away a long minute of raising their voices over each other. ABC <\/p>\n

George quickly responded: \u201cI can disagree with you about the history there, but we don\u2019t need a history lesson right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things then fell apart completely, with both men speaking loudly over each other as Stephanopoulos tried to move on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want, I\u2019ve got all your quotes here, George,\u201d said Bessent, with the ABC host interjecting: \u201cI\u2019m sure you do, but let\u2019s talk about the situation right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BillThe ABC host was once a Democratic advisor, and was communications director for Bill Clinton’s White House during the 1995-96 shutdown. Cynthia Johnson\/Getty <\/p>\n

Bessent raised his voice further. \u201cI\u2019ve read your book, so you got one purchase on Amazon this week,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cAnd that\u2019s very much what you said.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephanopoulos retaliated: \u201cThat\u2019s a mischaracterization of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

He returned to the question that started the argument, asking once more: \u201cBut I do want to talk about right now. Is the best way to end the shutdown right now to end the filibuster?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessent sidestepped either supporting or condemning the filibuster \u2018nuclear option,\u2019 that Trump has repeatedly called for, but repeated: \u201cThe best way is for five Democratic senators to come across the aisle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PresidentLast month, Donald Trump named Stephanopoulos as the reason he no longer wanted to talk to ‘ABC fake news.’ Roberto Schmidt\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Bessent has remained ever-loyal to Trump, who last month made it clear that Stephanopoulos was at the top of his list of enemies after the ABC star cut short a similarly tense interview with JD Vance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alongside dubbing the host \u2018George Sloppodopoulos,\u2019<\/a> Trump raged to an ABC reporter: \u201cYou\u2019re ABC fake News. I don\u2019t take questions from ABC fake News. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter what you did with Stephanopoulos to the Vice President of the United States, I don\u2019t take questions from ABC fake News.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott Bessent\u2018s interview with George Stephanopoulos quickly devolved into a verbal sparring match on Sunday. The Treasury Secretary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1855,9257,23,111709,3,4666,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-281905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-abc","9":"tag-abc-news","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-george-stephanopoulos","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-scott-bessent","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}