Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s fiery temper was back in the headlines on Monday after it was reported that he’d threatened to “punch” a colleague in the Trump adminsitration “in the f***ing face” at a dinner.
The explosive scene played out last Wednesday, according to Politico Magazine, at a club in Washington D.C. where top administration officials were honoring club co-founder and MAGA podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya.
At the dinner, Bessent confronted Federal Housing Finance Agency director Wililam Pulte over rumors that Pulte was trashing the Treasury secretary behind his back in conversations with Donald Trump.
Bessent, enraged, reportedly threatened Pulte multiple times: “Why the f*** are you talking to the president about me? F*** you. I’m gonna punch you in your f***ing face.”
Omeed Malik, another co-owner of the club, intervened unsuccessfully. Bessent told Malik that one of the two officials, him or Pulte, needed to be kicked out before the dinner for Palihapitiya proceeded.
“It’s either me or him,” Politico reports Bessent told the club owner. “You tell me who’s getting the f*** out of here.”
Then, to Pulte, he reportedly suggested: “Or we could go outside.”
Pulte, apparently trying to defuse the situation, asked if Bessent would speak to him outside.
“No,” Bessent reportedly said. “I’m going to f***ing beat your ass.”
The two men were then separated and seated at opposite ends of the table during dinner, according to the report.
It would be the second time that the Treasury secretary had a blow-up with a fellow administration official at roughly the same level of seniority within the span of just a few months. Bessent, in April, was reported to have used very similar language in a confrontation with former DOGE chief Elon Musk, before Musk’s own public break-up with Trump and the White House.
According to The Atlantic, Bessent and Musk’s argument in the West Wing devolved into a shouting match, with the two threatening to trade blows in the White House after Musk repeatedly taunted his colleague and called him a “Soros” agent — referring to George Soros, a liberal billionaire. MAGA ally Stephen Bannon even claimed to The Washington Post that the pair exchanged blows. Musk rammed his shoulder into Bessent’s rib cage “like a rugby player,” and Bessent hit him back, the War Room host said.
"It was two billionaire, middle-aged men thinking it was WWE in the hall of the West Wing,” one witness told Axios of that blow-up in April.
Bessent, in that instance, was also reported to have used profanity and similar language to his latest conflict with Pulte.
Bessent himself is valued around $600m, according to Forbes. He’s also one of the president’s champions on the cable news circuit, where the Treasury secretary often takes the lead in defending Trump’s reciprocal tariff agenda and efforts to bully and intimidate the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates.
White House officials have never denied that Bessent and Musk exploded at each other in the West Wing, and did not comment on Politico’s latest reporting. The Independent reached out to the White House to provide opportunity for comment.
Pulte is another key member of Trump’s team. The Federal Housing Finance Agency administrator holds a very special role on the president’s team: attack dog. Using his position, Pulte has led the charge in leveling accusations of mortgage fraud against a very particular list of the president’s enemies, including California Sen. Adam Schiff (a top player in his impeachment proceedings) and Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve board of governors.
Notably, none of Pulte’s criminal referrals to the Justice Department have resulted in any real criminal charges. However, persons familiar with the agency say that investigators are following up on Pulte’s accusations with independent investigations.
The Independent reported in late August that Pulte and ally Ed Martin, formerly the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, report directly to the president and completely bypass existing Justice Department infrastructure as they pursue clearly politicized probes into Democratic officials.
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