Scott Bessent didn’t finish his interview Thursday morning. He was mid-conversation with Sky News anchor Wilfred Frost at the White House when an aide walked over and told him the President needed him right away. Bessent pulled off his mic, excused himself, and left. It was 10:22 am. Frost waited nearly two hours.
When the Treasury Secretary came back, something had clearly happened. His voice shook through much of what followed. Asked whether Trump was stressed, Bessent said the President was “in great spirits” and that “the Iranian mission is proceeding well ahead of schedule.” He praised both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, mentioned that his teenage child was thinking about joining the military, and said he would trust their lives “in their hands.” His voice was unsteady the whole time. On the specifics of what was happening in Iran, he didn’t say much.
Bessent, 63, is the first openly gay person to head the US Treasury Department. He has two children Cole and Caroline, born through surrogacy with his husband John Freeman.
The Iran war is now nearly two weeks old. It has pushed fuel prices sharply higher and tightened supply chains, largely because Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. On Friday, four people died when a US military aircraft went down in Iraq. An Iran-backed armed group in the country claimed it shot the plane down; the US military denied it, according to Reuters.
Trump, meanwhile, told G7 leaders on a call that Iran was “about to surrender,” Axios reported. He said he had “got rid of a cancer that was threatening us all” and spoke at length about the results of Operation Epic Fury.
