Ten-year yield hits two-decade high despite buyback program
The Wall Street Journal, in an investigation based on interviews with more than 30 former and current Treasury and administration officials, close associates from Wall Street and others, reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent faces high staff turnover and Wall Street skepticism 20 months into his tenure. Seven Senate-confirmed officials had left the department by the end of August, compared with zero to two during similar periods in the past four administrations, including President Trump’s first term, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group. Only one of the recent vacancies under Bessent’s watch has been filled with another Senate-confirmed official. Dozens more non-Senate-confirmed officials have left the department since Bessent was sworn in, the Journal reported. The department currently lacks a Senate-confirmed general counsel, head of legislative affairs, and officials overseeing tax policy or domestic finance, although two of the positions have nominees.
Bessent advised Trump to pursue a “3-3-3” policy: cutting the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2028, spurring GDP growth of 3% and producing an additional three million barrels of oil a day. Growth has been around 2% and oil production has increased less than a million barrels a day since Trump took office, the Journal reported. The budget deficit is now over 6% of GDP, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and U.S. debt recently topped $40 trillion. While economic growth hasn’t reached 3%, it has been relatively solid and may be accelerating now thanks to the AI boom, Bessent’s backers argue.
A deepening selloff in U.S. government bonds has driven the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to highs last seen more than two decades ago, despite a stepped-up buyback program Bessent set in motion to contain the increase. The result is higher borrowing costs for Americans. Bessent’s backers also argue bond yields would have been even higher without his intervention and point to his role in supporting the Argentine peso and Japanese yen.
Trump has tasked Bessent with ending the war in Iran through a sweeping sanctions plan, but the conflict has no clear end in sight. The president recently rejected Iran’s offer for a deal and has told aides he expects another U.S. bombing campaign against Iran after the midterms, the Journal reported. At the end of August, Bessent unveiled an economic plan to end the war, privately convincing Trump it was time to trade bombs for economic warfare, according to people close to the administration. Bessent and a small group of close advisers put together the plan, leaning on Gene Lange, a trusted ally who used to work for Bessent at his investment firm Key Square Capital Management. The economic campaign has been dismissed by some foreign policy experts and economists as inadequate to batter Tehran into submission and for not directly targeting the government of China, its key trading partner.
Bessent has consolidated power in the department, often relying on a handful of advisers to carry out the president’s agenda, the Journal reported. His inner circle includes Alexandra Preate, his senior counselor and top spokeswoman, who did public relations work for Bessent before he entered government. Shortly after Hurley left his role, Bessent gave Lange his duties — though not the Senate-confirmed job — giving Lange control over the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, which oversees everything from money laundering to sanctions. Hunter McMaster, a close Bessent ally and assistant secretary at the department, also worked at Key Square, as did Francis Browne, who was recently nominated to be an undersecretary at the department. Browne’s sister, Erin Browne, was recently confirmed by the Senate as Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs. Treasury announced last week that David Zervos, a longtime Wall Street market strategist and a top executive at Jefferies, would become a senior adviser to Bessent. Outside advisers include economist and television personality Larry Kudlow; Lawrence Lindsey, the former head of the White House’s National Economic Council; and Alec Ellison, an investment banker in New York and a fellow native of South Carolina, according to people close to Bessent. Some who cross the secretary or the White House have been sidelined or pushed out of the department, the Journal reported.
Bessent’s behavior was a factor — and sometimes the most important one — in the departure of multiple key officials, the Journal reported. During a January meeting at the Treasury Department, Bessent confronted John Hurley, the agency’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, yelling at him in front of aides and unleashing profanities over what Bessent viewed as foot-dragging on a probe of alleged fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community. Bessent shouted so loudly that staff working nearby could hear him, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Weeks later, Bessent discussed with aides the idea of finding Hurley, who had been confirmed by the Senate for his position, a job outside the department, the people said. Hurley left to be U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Scott Bessent is a brilliant and fearless warrior for President Trump and the American people,” Hurley said in a statement.
Since becoming Treasury secretary in early 2025, Bessent has dressed down senior advisers and junior staffers alike over issues large and small, the Journal reported. Last year, Bessent got so angry about the way his daily briefing book was organized that he picked up the binder full of papers and threw it at a wall, people familiar with the matter said. Bessent denied the account to The Wall Street Journal. He has shouted at staff for not moving fast enough to implement his ideas and for failing to combat unfavorable media coverage, some of the officials said. Several potential recruits told the Journal they decided not to pursue job opportunities at Treasury because they had heard about Bessent’s behavior.
Bessent’s tenure has also seen historic turnover at the Internal Revenue Service, which he oversees. Since Trump took office, the IRS has cycled through five acting commissioners, and the position is currently vacant. Bessent created a new, non-Senate-confirmed role overseeing the agency, appointing ally and Social Security Administration chief Frank Bisignano as the IRS’s CEO.
Current and former department officials described in interviews a high-stress work environment that veterans of past administrations said was more intense than they have experienced. People who have worked with Bessent said he often appears calm but can excoriate staff when he is frustrated. Some aides said they ask colleagues about the secretary’s mood before coming into contact with him, and trade advice on how to avoid him when he is angry. Several officials described feeling relieved when Bessent was away from the office. “When people legitimately question what he’s doing he falls back on ad hominem attacks,” said Stephen Myrow, a former Treasury official and managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors. “People want someone in that role who’s less thin skinned and seen as almost boring.”
The Treasury secretary cycled through three people filling the role of chief of staff before settling on Kate Tyrrell in June. Dan Katz, Bessent’s first chief of staff, was among the officials who clashed with Bessent, according to people familiar with the matter. He left the agency in fall 2025 to be a senior official at the International Monetary Fund. Bessent sometimes lashed out at Katz in meetings when he offered counsel on policy matters, according to some of the people. In a statement, Katz said Bessent drew on his experience as a successful investor to approach decisions “with discipline, clear judgment, and a strong sense of urgency.”
Bessent enjoys cultivating a tough-guy image, according to former Treasury officials, who said the secretary found reports about altercations with other Trump advisers humorous. He asked more than one aide if they had read the news coverage of his dust-ups with administration officials. He had to be separated from Elon Musk early on in the Trump administration after the two men got into a shouting match in the West Wing during a disagreement over the Internal Revenue Service. Bessent confronted Trump’s housing chief, Bill Pulte, at a private dinner in September 2025, physically threatening Pulte over allegations that Pulte was undermining him with Trump. “Treasury secretaries dating back to Alexander Hamilton have a history of dueling,” Bessent quipped when asked during a CNBC interview about his argument with Pulte, “and it turned out a little better for Treasury’s side this time.”
Bessent has also clashed with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to an administration official and a Trump adviser, at times questioning Lutnick’s competency in his job. Last year, at The Ned, a private Washington club frequented by administration officials, Lutnick asked Bessent if the two men could talk. “No,” Bessent curtly replied, turning his back on the Commerce secretary, according to a person who witnessed the exchange. Lutnick told the Journal there was no disagreement at The Ned. “That evening, we spoke to the president together. Scott is a key member of the administration and is committed to advancing President Trump’s agenda,” he said.
Trump calls Bessent almost every day, according to people familiar with the conversations, and the Treasury secretary is one of the few senior administration officials who can talk the president out of ideas he views as unwise, some of the people said, such as escalating tariffs. A White House official said Bessent has told other administration officials he doesn’t want the president to view his agency as a dysfunctional operation. The president has told advisers he thinks Bessent is adept at calming the markets and has encouraged him to help figure out a way to lower interest rates. During an event in Nevada in April, Trump described Bessent as difficult and took credit for turning the Treasury secretary into a “big star.” “I created a monster,” Trump joked, according to the Journal. A senior administration official told the Journal that the president’s entire economic policy agenda is on the Treasury secretary’s shoulders. “Scott cannot fail,” the official said.
Bessent’s defenders in and out of the administration acknowledge he can be combative, has a temper and is demanding with staff, but they argue his intense approach is an asset. “He’s a good person, but he’s got a tripwire and he’s got a temper,” Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House chief strategist, told the Journal. “‘We got a purpose and mission here, and we’re mission oriented. And I’m not interested in your feelings. If your feelings are hurt, I’m sorry, but get the f— out of here,’” Bannon said, describing Bessent’s attitude toward Treasury staff. Joseph Lavorgna, a former counselor to Bessent, said: “The secretary is demanding and results oriented. As one of the world’s greatest macro investors, this should not be a surprise. When I worked for him, he was always professional and respectful.” The secretary’s advisers also criticized some of the staff who have left the department after clashing with Bessent, arguing that they were standing in the way of the president’s vision. Myrow, the Beacon Policy Advisors managing partner, said: “A lot of people in the investment community had hoped he was the adult in the room.” Investors are “starting to see him as acting more and more like Trump…and that’s shaking confidence in him,” Myrow added.
As an investor on Wall Street, Bessent developed a reputation for intensity, according to former colleagues. Bessent, who worked for George Soros’s hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, and became the firm’s chief investment officer in 2011, sometimes exhibited streaks of anger. After a $200 million investment in Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners ran into trouble in 2012, Bessent became angry in a meeting at the firm’s office, as Soros and a half-dozen others watched uncomfortably. “We had a very animated discussion” over Harbinger’s investment in an ill-fated wireless venture, “which he clearly didn’t know the first thing about, and I think he got quite annoyed when I implied that,” Falcone recalled. “He wasn’t screaming, but it was very heated.” A Soros representative declined to comment. Falcone reached a civil settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2013 after the regulator said he and his firm harmed investors. He and the firm agreed to pay more than $18 million, and Falcone was banned from the securities industry for five years.
Bessent, meanwhile, has projected unwavering confidence in public, the Journal reported. He has dismissed his critics as “Bloomberg terminal bros” and quipped in a recent interview, “I am the house now.” “You can bet against me if you want,” he added. He has become increasingly emboldened, making unilateral decisions that have confounded even some of his longtime allies and friends, the Journal reported.
Bessent and his allies have worked to protect his public image, battling reporters in public and private over their coverage, the Journal reported. The Treasury secretary yells at his communications staff over stories or headlines he doesn’t like, current and former officials said. After the Journal wrote a story about Bessent’s purchase of government bonds that he objected to, the Treasury Department blocked a Journal reporter from attending a press conference where the secretary announced his plan to isolate Iran through stepped-up economic sanctions. The department also revoked the credentials of reporters from the Journal, the New York Times and Bloomberg to cover a G-20 finance ministers summit in North Carolina. In a recent Axios interview, Bessent called the Financial Times a “disgraced publication” and accused it of being “anti-American.”
When hecklers from the liberal group Code Pink interrupted the Treasury secretary at a Washington restaurant in December and criticized the Trump administration’s economic sanctions policies, Bessent called them ignorant and erupted at the owner of the restaurant for not removing them. According to the owner and a nearby diner, Bessent spit in his own food before leaving.
In June 2025, a day after Treasury sanctioned three Mexican financial firms, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at a press conference called for proof that the firms had been laundering money in connection with illegal opioid trafficking. “We are no one’s piñata,” Sheinbaum said. Bessent began upbraiding his staff, urging them to publicly push back on her remarks. Treasury staff in Mexico received emails from Bessent aides in Washington that laid out the secretary’s frustrations. “The secretary is losing it,” one of Bessent’s aides said at the time, meaning Bessent was losing his temper, according to a person who received one of the emails.
A Treasury spokesman said Bessent “approaches the job with a deep sense of responsibility and urgency” and “has high expectations of the United States Treasury’s performance.” The spokesman, who did not comment on Bessent’s interactions with staff or other officials, said Bessent’s successes included the implementation of tax cuts for families, bank regulatory reform, more than a dozen major economic agreements, the China economic relationship, and the program to cut Iran off from the international financial system. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement: “The level of professionalism and accountability Secretary Bessent has instilled department-wide is one of the great accomplishments of this administration.”