Argentina bailout shows that Trump's Cabinet has no adults in the room

To survive in this administration means to be servile. And Scott Bessent of Treasury is doing both.

- JACKIE CALMES COLUMNIST

NLY COMPARED with the likes of Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, Russell Vought, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kristi Noem and others in President Trump's Cabinet of incompetents, radicals and flatterers would Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent be the welcome "normie.

That's how Bessent, a pragmatic, seemingly mild-mannered and once-bipartisan hedge fund executive, was greeted from Wall Street to Main Street upon Trump's nomination of him after the election nearly a year ago. ""Huge relief.' CEOs exhale after Trump taps Scott Bessent to lead Treasury" was the CNN headline. Bessent had won Trump's favor over, among others, the brash and Trump-toadying Howard Lutnick, who had to settle for Commerce secretary. Elon Musk, soon to be Trump's short-lived co-president, called Bessent a “business-as-usual choice.” It wasn’t a compliment—Musk favored Lutnick, a fellow “move fast and break things” type.

Only by Trump standards—an oxymoron, to be sure—has Bessent turned out to be normal. Which only proves that the Trump 2.0 Cabinet has no place for actual normies. To survive means to be servile. And Bessent, who's accompanied Trump at his Asia stops this week, is doing both.

Business folks and other traditional Republicans hoped that Bessent would help deliver the Trump promises they coveted: big tax cuts and an end to those pesky regulations enacted after the 2008 financial crash. On those, he has helped deliver. But Trump's business backers also hoped that Bessent would keep a lid on other defining Trump vows that they dreaded: across-the-board tariffs, threats to the Federal Reserve's independence and mass deportations of immigrants, a.k.a. businesses’ employees. On those policies, Bessent has bent to Trump.