U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ran laps around the mind of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) on Wednesday as she struggled to comprehend that he charged Treasury employees with safeguarding Americans’ personal data, not Elon Musk.
The mild-mannered Trump cabinet member was invited to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on the status of global trade and the progress under President Donald Trump’s tariff plans. Bessent was expected to celebrate a looming deal with Great Britain when Waters hijacked the hearing to rail against the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency and the alleged risks it poses to the personal data of hundreds of millions of Americans.
“Do you know the level, type, or nature of the clearances and security training required for individuals to access the information held in the computers of Treasury, IRS, or [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]?” she asked Bessent.
“Yes I do, and I think we would have a disagreement over the definition of the word ‘unfettered,’” he replied with a thin smile.
Waters, 86, had just opened her time at the microphone by claiming that Musk and DOGE have been given “unfettered” access to America’s financial systems, a claim that has been repeated endlessly in the mainstream media and which Bessent immediately sought to allay.
When the Democrat tried to ask again if untrained DOGE staffers were running amok at Treasury, Bessent was ready.
“Again, they were granted read-only at Treasury. There were two-”
“So let me just say-”
“Please! You can’t filibuster here. This is not the filibuster playground,” she said with a sharp glare. “What you did was, you let these strangers into our Treasury with access to all of the data, all of the personnel information, and you just opened the door! Why’d you do that?”
After Bessent, a Yale graduate and former hedge fund manager, reminded Waters that “there’s no such thing” as a DOGE employee, and that all the individuals she referenced were direct employees under his purview, she finally gave up and moved on.
“I tend to disagree with you based on the information I have,” she sneered.
Bessent’s spat with Waters was a blip during what was otherwise a straightforward progress report under the Republican-led committee. He revealed that the administration is “currently negotiating” with 17 of its 18 “very important trading relationships” but that China is not one of them “as of yet.”
Bessent also said he expects that “perhaps as early as this week, we will be announcing trade deals with some of our largest trading partners.”
Of all the countries suffering from Trump’s tariffs, China is the “most vulnerable,” Bessent alleged during an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham last week.
“We don’t want to decouple. What we want is fair trade,” he said as the two sides move closer to the negotiation table.
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