Bessent Fires Again At Newsom After ‘Smug’ Jab

[ad_1] Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fired again at California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom after Newsom mocked him for being “smug.”

In a Fox Enterprise interview on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Bessent was discussing the Trump administration’s plan to restrict or ban massive institutional buyers from shopping for single-family properties to ease provide shortages and preserve housing extra reasonably priced for particular person consumers.

The administration has floated measures to limit massive institutional buyers (equivalent to non-public fairness companies and huge company landlords) from buying single-family properties, since these entities have been accused of shopping for up massive numbers of homes and lowering provide for normal consumers.

Bessent was explaining that any steerage on this coverage would wish to tell apart between true small “mother and pop” buyers and huge buyers.

He used an instance of a hypothetical small investor, saying, “We’re going to present steerage, in some unspecified time in the future, to see, what's a mother and pop. Somebody, possibly your mother and father for his or her retirement have purchased 5, 10, 12 properties. So we don’t need to push the mothers and pops out; we simply need to push everybody else out,” that means bigger, institutional consumers.

Newsom mocked Bessent, writing on X, “Might this smug man be extra out of contact?”

Might this smug man be extra out of contact? https://t.co/GUqqi5KoNB

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) January 20, 2026

Bessent fired again:

Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Seashore Ken, could be the solely Californian who is aware of much less about economics than Kamala Harris. He’s right here this week together with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros, and Davos is an ideal place for a person who, when everybody else is on lockdown, when he was having folks arrested for going to church. … Disgrace on him. He's too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know something. … Let me know for those who want any additional clarification.

California Governor Gavin Newsom referred to as the Treasury Secretary smug. At present in Davos the Treasury Secretary responded.. and I've to cite this: “Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Seashore Ken, could be the solely Californian who is aware of much less about economics…

— Edward Lawrence (@EdwardLawrence) January 21, 2026

Newsom by no means lived a middle-class monetary life as an grownup; his profession wasenabled by elite patronage, not grassroots entrepreneurship, as his father, William Newsom, a decide and political insider, was shut associates with Gordon Getty, inheritor to the Getty oil fortune. Getty bankrolled Newsom’s first main enterprise ventures, offering tons of of 1000's of {dollars} in startup capital.

Earlier this month, AP identified, “California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s workplace stated the state faces a $2.9 billion price range deficit this yr … It’s the fourth yr in a row that the nation’s most populous state faces a multibillion-dollar price range deficit. This yr’s shortfall comes regardless of rising revenues fueled by inventory market beneficial properties and investments in synthetic intelligence.”

Bessent got here from a working household; his father was an actual property developer who skilled monetary ups and downs. Bessent later earned a B.A. in political science from Yale College in 1984, then moved into finance.