The Treasury Secretary was rushed off the set of a Sky News interview after the President summoned him immediately to the Situation Room.
Scott Bessent appeared unsettled, shaken even, when he returned, critics have alleged.
The eye-catching mid-interview interruption came when he was speaking with ‘The Master Investor’ host Wilfred Frost about Japanese economics.
‘Sorry, the President wants you right away,’ an off-camera aide told Bessent.
The Treasury Secretary turned toward the aide, removed his microphone and got up to visit Donald Trump.
He was gone just before 10.30am Thursday and returned just after noon, according to Sky News.
Frost noted the significant moment when Bessent sat back down, remarking how it’s the first time an interviewee had to get up to visit the Situation Room.
‘How was the President? Was he stressed?’ the host pressed.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was suddenly called to the Situation Room during an interview with Sky News this week
Bessent, after turning to look at his aides, immediately got up and left
Bessent appeared uneasy when he returned and had some difficulty answering Frost’s questions about the President
‘Uh, no, the President is in great spirits,’ Bessent rattled out.
‘The Iranian mission is proceeding well ahead of schedule,’ he said between short, shallow breaths. ‘And I have to tell you, Will, that I’ve a teenage teenager who’s considering, uh, military service. And I could give this team my highest compliment.’
‘From President Trump to the head of the Joint Chiefs to the Secretary of War, I would they say that I would trust my child’s life in their hands,’ he continued.
The Treasury Secretary also reaffirmed a line touted by the administration that the US military will likely provide escorts for oil tankers wishing to travel through the Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of the world’s oil traverses.
The US national average price for a gallon of regular gas is $3.63, roughly $.70 more than it was a month ago, when the average was $2.94.
That is an increase of over 20 percent in just a month, and some experts are predicting that the national average could get above $5 per gallon for diesel soon.
‘I believe it’s no longer a question of IF but WHEN the national average price for diesel reaches $5 per gallon,’ petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan wrote on Thursday.
As of Friday, the national average for a gallon of diesel is $4.89.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Friday morning at a Pentagon event that the US military is considering escorting tankers through the strait, but that the order to do so has not been given.
‘We planned for it. We recognize it. Um, because ultimately, we want to do it sequentially in a way that makes the most sense for what we want to achieve,’ Hegseth said in response to a question from the Daily Mail.
Hegseth said Iran is ‘exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz, something we’re dealing with. We have been dealing with it. Don’t need to worry about.’
