Treasury pick Bessent to meet with Senate GOP leaders this week
Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the Treasury Department, is planning to meet with Senate Republican leaders later this week, kicking off Capitol Hill outreach as his confirmation process begins.
Bessent plans to meet with incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. John Barrasso, who is set to become the No. 2 Republican, according to Raj Shah, a Trump transition spokesperson. Punchbowl earlier reported the meetings.
Since winning the hard-fought battle to be Trump’s pick for the preeminent economic role, Bessent has already met separately with his home-state lawmakers, South Carolina Republican Sens. Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham.
Bessent, a hedge fund manager, has drawn praise from Republican senators and Wall Street executives, who view him as a steady steward of the economy with deep experience in financial markets. He has avoided the criticism that Trump’s other, more controversial picks for top roles in his administration have faced, including Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS chief.
If confirmed, Bessent will be poised for a leading role as Republicans hash out major legislation to extend their 2017 tax cuts and debate ways to implement Trump’s campaign promises to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security payments.
But his confirmation process could also highlight some of the fissures among Republicans over Trump's economic ideas such as across-the-board tariffs and eroding the independence of the Federal Reserve.
Bessent has been a defender of Trump’s hawkish trade policies, calling massive tariffs a key negotiating tool. And earlier this year he pitched the concept of Trump nominating a “shadow Fed chair” to sideline Jerome Powell before his term expires in 2026, though he later said he had dropped the idea.
Democrats like Sens. Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren criticized Bessent’s Wall Street ties and role as a wealthy political donor, though they haven’t said they’ll vote against him.