'Can you shut up?' Maxine Waters SNAPS at Scott Bessent at wild hearing... but the Treasury Secretary hits back with a delicious response
By Victoria Churchill
Daily Mail
Feb 5, 2026
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council's annual report to Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Thursday
Scott Bessent left Democrats fuming on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as he refused to bend to their furious yelling, including requests for him to 'shut up' and repeated direct attacks on his work.
Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary went toe to toe with California Democrat Maxine Waters over the President's tariffs at a House Financial Services Committee hearing.
Waters, in an astonishing outburst as Bessent attempted to answer her, asked the committee chair: 'Can you shut him up?'
Bessent fired back a withering response: 'Can you maintain some level of dignity?'
Congressman Greg Meeks, another Democrat on the committee, pressed Bessent on the President's business dealings, including a $500 million stake in Trump's cryptocurrency firm that was sold to a member of the Emirati royal family.
When Bessent pushed back by asking Meeks about his own trips to Venezuela, the Congressman yelled at him: 'Stop covering for the President.
'Don't be a flunky. Work for the American people. Work for the American people. Don't be a cover-up for a mob.'
Bessent later mocked a question from Representative Stephen Lynch, D-Mass, about shuttered investigations into cryptocurrency firms. Lynch expressed frustration with Bessent's interruptions, saying, 'Mister Chairman, the answers have to be responsive if we are going to have a serious hearing.'
Committee ranking member US Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat from California, speaks as Bessent testifies
US Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY) responds to Bessent during the heated hearing
Bessent replied, 'Well, the questions have to be serious.'
The Treasury Secretary also called Representative Sylvia Garcia 'confused' when she questioned how undocumented immigrants could affect housing affordability, prompting the Texas Democrat to snap back, 'Don't be demeaning to me, alright?'
Bessent was also on Capitol Hill Thursday, where he was set to spar again with lawmakers.
He was appearing before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee on the same topic: the annual report by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which Bessent leads.
His performance on Wednesday was 'not a role you typically see a treasury secretary play,' said Graham Steele, a former assistant secretary for financial institutions under Biden-era Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
The department has traditionally 'been removed from some of the day-to-day, hand-to-hand political combat,' Steele said in an interview.
He recalled his former boss having tense exchanges over climate change and policy issues with Republican lawmakers during committee hearings, but the exchanges were not personal, he said, noting that treasury secretaries have to strike a 'delicate balance' of working with the White House while safeguarding the 'economic stature' of the country internationally.
In recent months, Bessent has ratcheted up his insults when it comes to Democratic leaders.
Bessent being questioned by US Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA) during the House Financial Services Committee hearing
Representative Stephen Lynch, D-Mass, questions Bessent during the hearing
He has called California Governor Gavin Newsom 'economically illiterate,' compared him to the fictional serial killer Patrick Bateman, and called him 'a brontosaurus with a brain the size of a walnut.'
He has on several occasions called Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren an 'American Peronist' after she told American financial institutions not to finance the Trump administration's massive support package for Argentina.
Bessent's combativeness is, in part, a sign of the times, said David Lublin, chair of the Department of Government at American University's School of Public Affairs.
'President Trump has shown he likes belligerence and he likes nominees and others who defend him vociferously,' Lublin told The Associated Press.
'It's hard to say that this is unusual for this political environment. What used to be the normal modicum of respect for Congress has frayed to the point of vanishing,' Lublin said.
What was unusual, in Lublin's view, was for Bessent to reveal his thoughts on monetary policy - normally the purview of the Federal Reserve - and his insistence that Trump has the right to interfere with the decision-making of the central bank.
'You have a cabinet secretary defending the president's efforts to erode institutions,' Lublin said.
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