The Scoop
Last September, Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait got a call from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The secretary had been a regular on Bloomberg’s TV programming and in its reporting for years, first as the founder of a hedge fund, and increasingly as he rose in Donald Trump’s circle to become the most powerful financial official in the now-president’s Cabinet.
He was furious that Bloomberg reporters Anthony Cormier and Zachary Mider planned to report that Bessent had agreed to simultaneously occupy two different houses as his “principal residence,” two people familiar with the exchange told Semafor — just as Trump was trying to use the same rationale to justify firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. During the conversation, Bessent told Micklethwait that if Bloomberg went ahead with the piece, the financial news giant could expect different treatment from the Treasury Department — including no more appearances by the Treasury secretary, a coveted TV guest. Bessent’s team also wanted more time to provide further documentation.
Bloomberg published the article anyway. But in the year since, Bessent has followed through on his threat. The secretary stopped appearing on Bloomberg Television.
Some of its reporters privately complain that they no longer receive certain press releases with key financial information. Bloomberg, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal journalists were also denied credentials to join Bessent at a G20 meeting of financial leaders in Asheville, North Carolina, earlier this month.
A spokesperson for Bloomberg declined to comment.
Bessent’s rift with Bloomberg is part of a tense and distant relationship between the powerful Cabinet secretary and the press corps that covers him, which includes both high-profile finance reporters and the typically lower-key in-house Treasury press. As high interest rates remain front-page news — and so-called bond vigilantes test Treasury’s credibility — critical headlines in financial and business publications have frustrated a secretary who didn’t spend his career seeking the public eye, and doesn’t seem to think all those who cover him are up to the job.
In public over the last several weeks, Bessent has railed against the Financial Times for reporting that he had discussed tightening Treasury’s oversight of the Federal Reserve by adopting elements of the Bank of England’s model, describing the story as “tabloid trash for market participants” and calling the reporters “pathetic” and “mendacious.”
He’s called out Nick Timiraos, the Journal’s well-regarded chief economic correspondent, dubbing him one of the “stenographers posing as journalists” over what Bessent characterized as weak reporting on monetary policy.
And in private, Bessent has complained personally to reporters and editors about coverage, and iced out journalists he and his team feel have been unfair.
The New York Times first reported earlier this month that certain reporters from the Times, Journal, and Bloomberg had not received press credentials to cover the G20 event.
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The cadre of reporters devoted full-time to Treasury have largely avoided the big Trump-era confrontations that have defined the White House and Pentagon beats. The group — which includes beat reporters from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and the wire services — is more used to choreographed exchanges with officials than heated on-camera back-and-forths. During Trump’s 2024 campaign, Bessent was broadly a helpful surrogate to many economic policy reporters, a figure with serious Wall Street credentials who could translate the then-former president’s occasionally hazy vision for the economy into more concrete policy.
But upon taking office, the Treasury secretary showed he was going to have a different relationship with the press. When Bessent traveled to Ukraine in February 2025, he did not do it with most of the normal Treasury beat reporters in tow. One of the few members of the media who did go along was Jack Posobiec, the Pizzagate figure turned conservative influencer.
That was the first sign that things would be different from Trump’s first term, when then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin regularly brought the press along on the department’s plane, fielding on- and off-the-record questions about fiscal policy during flights (though he stopped after Mnuchin’s use of a private government jet became a focal point of media coverage).
But Mnuchin’s friendlier media strategy has not aged particularly well within Trump’s MAGA circle. When Semafor brought up Mnuchin’s friendly relationship to the press compared to Bessent’s recent criticism, one Trump-world figure bluntly told me, “Notice that he’s not in the job this time around.”
Now, the press corps does not travel with the secretary, a frustration for journalists, though a Treasury insider said it was the result of plane retrofitting and assignment logistics, forcing journalists and some senior staff to fly commercial.
Reporters’ literal movements within Treasury are also becoming more restricted; the department has begun limiting journalists’ access to the physical Treasury building. Earlier this year, a draft of a letter to communications officials Alexandra Preate and Elliott Hulse circulated among journalists requesting guidance on the department’s policies for issuing hard passes, which allow journalists to enter and move within the building, and use a designated press area for work. The letter noted that while some reporters had been told hard passes would be restored when the department brought in a new public affairs officer, it also noted that the department had told some journalists that it would not issue them hard passes at all.
“Press access to the Treasury building is essential to helping reporters give thorough
and accurate information to the widest possible audience,” the letter said. The letter circulated through the press corps, but ultimately was not sent.
A Treasury source downplayed the hard pass restrictions, noting that there had been little demand, and said the department had simply kept a policy in place implemented during the Biden administration’s COVID pandemic-era restrictions. (A former Biden administration official said Treasury did credential reporters post-pandemic.) New Secret Service rules also require non-Americans to travel within the buildings with an escort.
Frustrations with the mainstream media have meanwhile driven Bessent more towards friendly ideological territory; in recent days, he’s made time for the news streaming channel Right Side Broadcasting, Fox News, and Steve Bannon’s War Room show. On Friday, he appeared on War Room from the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.
“If some of the Bloomberg Terminal bros are unhappy with me,” he said, “that’s too bad.”
Max’s view
Bessent’s antipathy towards the news media is hardly a unique posture within Trump’s White House or Bessent’s world of high finance, where an increasing number of executives are more likely to share his loathing for journalism they see as anti-business.
But it’s a surprising point of friction. Unlike the White House, where reporters often perform over-the-top questions in front of the briefing room cameras to audition for bigger careers, or the State Department, where some openly ideological journalists will occasionally go at it with officials over foreign policy, Treasury reporters tend to err on the conservative, wonkier side.
As I made calls for this story, several media figures argued that a hostile relationship between the news media and the Treasury secretary could pose a real risk if the US finds itself in an economic crisis. I’m not so sure: In significant news moments, journalists and newsmakers frequently set aside grievances to get information out there. But Bessent’s frustration with the media seems to mirror his frustration with the markets and Bloomberg-addicted traders: Neither, it seems, will do as he instructs.
Room for Disagreement
The secretary’s office noted that he’s taken questions during press availabilities, including for tax filing season and at major news moments. During the recent G20 event, Treasury noted that it had credentialed 300 members of the media and held one-on-one interviews with local and national outlets across the political spectrum. At one recent press availability, one Treasury source noted, he took questions until a pool camera overheated.
From Bessent’s point of view, his time is extremely limited, and there are plenty of members of the news media who he feels give him a fair shake, so he prefers focusing on them.
A spokesperson told Semafor: “Secretary Bessent came to Washington with the sole focus of advancing President Trump’s agenda for the American people. He has consistently made himself available to reporters across the political spectrum and has conducted hundreds of media engagements, demonstrating a historic level of transparency.
“What we cannot do is dedicate the Secretary’s valuable time to helping media swamp creatures manufacture a fake narrative. Treasury looks forward to continuing to engage with reporters across the political spectrum who are interested in policy and not palace intrigue.”
Meanwhile, Bannon, who backed Bessent’s bid for the top Treasury job, described him Friday as “the finest Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton.”