Trump also said he would nominate Russel Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget, a position Vought held during Trump’s first presidency. Vought was closely involved Project 2025a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term in office, from which he tried to distance himself during the election campaign.
Friday night’s announcements showed how Trump was shaping the financial side of his new administration. Although Bessent has close ties to Wall Street and could win bipartisan support, Vought is considered a Republican hardliner.
Trump said Bessent “will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States,” while Vought “knows exactly how to dismantle the deep state and end the gun government.”
In a separate announcement, Trump said he had chosen Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican, as his labor secretary.
“I look forward to working with her to deliver tremendous opportunity for American workers,” Trump said in a statement.
Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, having worked for Soros Fund Management on and off since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the country’s first openly gay treasury secretary.
In August, he told Bloomberg that he had decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to address the rising U.S. national debt. That would include cutting government programs and other spending.
“This election cycle is the last chance for the United States to grow out of this mountain of debt without becoming some kind of European-style socialist democracy,” he said at the time.
As of November 8th The national debt is $35.94 trillionwith both the Trump and Biden administrations adding to this. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, while the Biden administration added $4.3 trillion to the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a financial watchdog.
Even as he pushes to reduce the national debt through a spending freeze, Bessent has supported expanding provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law during his first year in office. Estimates from various economic analyzes of the cost of the various tax cuts range from nearly $6 trillion to $10 trillion over ten years. Almost all provisions of the law expire at the end of 2025.
Before becoming a Trump donor and adviser, Bessent donated to various Democratic causes in the early 2000s, most notably to Al Gore’s presidential candidacy. He also worked for George Soros, a major Democratic supporter. Bessent played an influential role in Soros’ London dealings, including his famous bet against the pound in 1992, which reaped huge profits on “Black Wednesday,” when the pound was delinked from European currencies.
Bessent’s selection was not surprising; He was among the names proposed for the position of finance minister. At a Detroit Economic Club event in October, Trump called Bessent “one of the top analysts on Wall Street.”
Bessent told Bloomberg in August that he viewed the tariffs as a “one-time price adjustment” and “non-inflationary” and that tariffs imposed during a second Trump administration would primarily target China. And he wrote in one fox News said this week that tariffs are “a useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy goals.” Whether it’s getting allies to spend more on their own defense, opening foreign markets to U.S. exports, ensuring cooperation in ending illegal immigration and banning the fentanyl trade, or deterring military aggression, tariffs can play a central role play.”
Asked whether Trump’s large-scale deportation campaign could be financed with tariffs, Bessent told Fox News earlier this month that he was working on a plan for so-called “financial deportations” and said he would limit the flow of remittances to migrants’ home countries.
Bessent has also floated ideas about how the Trump administration could put pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May 2026. Last month, Bessent suggested that Trump could name a replacement chairman early and have that person serve as a “shadow.” Chairman, with the aim of effectively eliminating Powell.
But after the election, Bessent is said to have deviated from this plan. Powell, for his part, has said he would not resign if Trump asked him to do so, adding that as president, Trump had no authority to fire him.
Trump repeatedly attacked Powell during his first term as president for raising the Fed’s interest rate in 2017 and 2018. During the 2024 election campaign, he said that as president he should have a “say” in the central bank’s interest rate decisions. Presidents traditionally avoid commenting on Fed policy.
Bessent and his husband, former New York prosecutor John Freeman, married in 2011 and have two children.
Vought, 48, served as head of the Office of Management and Budget from mid-2020 until the end of Trump’s first term in 2021, after previously serving as acting director and deputy director. A graduate of Wheaton College and George Washington University Law School, he had extensive knowledge of government finance coupled with his own Christian faith.
After Trump’s first term ended, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank whose mission is to “renew a consensus about America as a nation under God.”
The Center for Renewing America has released its own 2023 budget proposal titled “A Commitment to End Work and Weaponized Government.” The proposal called for $11.3 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and about $2 trillion in income tax cuts to bring the budget into surplus by 2032.
“The immediate threat to the nation is that the people will no longer govern the country; Instead, government itself is increasingly being used as a weapon against the people it is supposed to serve,” Vought wrote in the introduction.
Vought also previously served as executive director and budget director for the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives. He also worked at Heritage Action, the policy group affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Vought’s proposed budget would cut spending on food aid by the Agriculture Department. There would be $3.3 trillion in spending cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, driven in large part by the way Medicaid and Medicare funds are distributed. It also includes about $642 billion in cuts to the Affordable Care Act. The budgets for the housing, urban development and education departments would also be cut.
Vought’s budget ideas were independent of Trump, who has not fully laid out the details of his economic plans other than to advocate for income tax cuts and tariff increases. __
Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.