A clip spreading online on Friday shows Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivering a blunt verdict on NBC's Kristen Welker: "I think she's like a sick puppy. She's so Trump-deranged." The clip, shared by commentator Benny Johnson, is being passed around widely.
Bessent and Welker last faced each other on Meet the Press on Sunday, October 18, in an interview that became an argument about who owns the economy. Welker opened with the newest inflation numbers: "Let's start on inflation, these new inflation numbers we got this week. Consumer prices rose in September at the fastest pace in five months, to 3.7%. Are the president's policies driving up inflation?"
Bessent answered that the country is living through an energy shock from the war with Iran: "Kristen, we have an energy shock. And if you look underneath the hood in the numbers, core inflation has been very flat before this month, and it'd been down for four months in a row. So core inflation is down. The food is below the Fed's targets. The prescription drugs have had the biggest decrease in history. Rents are down. So this is an energy shock. We will get to the other side of the Iran conflict, and those prices will come down."
Welker pushed back: "Well, core inflation doesn't take energy, for example, into account or food into account. And in fact the price of gas is up 44%, Mr. Secretary, since the start of the war with Iran. What do you say to voters right now who say they are struggling and they want change?" Bessent pointed to the Biden years — "the American people got smoked", with 21.5% inflation against about 17% wage increases — and said real wages under President Trump have risen 1.5% and will keep rising.
Then came the exchange the whole interview is remembered for. "I hear you blaming President Biden, but President Trump has been in office now for 636 days," Welker said. "That's about a year and a half, and inflation was at 3% when he took office. It's 3.7% now. At what point does the administration take responsibility for the economy and say this is the Trump economy?" Bessent did not dodge it: "Well, we will own the economy. So far this year, we've got a million private-sector jobs. We've never had this many people working in the U.S. The net worth of American households are the highest that it's ever been." Asked if gas prices will fall by the new year, he said it depends on the Iran conflict.
The second half of the interview was about Russia and Ukraine. Welker challenged the president's executive order waiving sanctions, asking why the president is "rewarding a dictator who invaded Ukraine". Bessent rejected the premise outright: "Well, first of all Kristen, that's not true. No sanctions were lifted on Friday. No sanctions were lifted. There is a 60-day period so we can examine what's going on. The only thing that has been lifted is the diesel embargo." He said President Trump, who sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, has been tougher on Russian sanctions than anyone, and turned the charge on Europe: European countries, he said, have given Russia more money than they have given Ukraine, are still "gorging on Russian energy", and took in 136 of the 140 cargoes shipped from Russia's Yamal facility in the first half of the year — more than $8 billion worth. "Why should the U.S. go it alone, Kristen?"
He also flatly denied President Zelenskyy's claim that the U.S. government slowed Ukraine's Starlink service: "President Trump and Secretary Rubio have categorically said that no one in the Trump administration did that. And I think it is very reckless for President Zelenskyy to make such a charge." Pressed three times — "Bottom line, Mr. Secretary, is Ukraine an ally of the United States?" — he answered that America provides intelligence and lets NATO buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine, "so that's what you do for an ally", but declined to say the word outright: "Again, I'm not the secretary of state. I'm not the president."
That refusal drew the sharpest reaction to the interview. Rep. Mike Levin of California answered the question himself — "Yes, Ukraine is our ally. And we must not turn our back on them" — and wrote that Bessent "should be ashamed of himself". Neither Welker nor NBC has publicly responded to the "sick puppy" line in the clip now spreading.
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