Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent late Sunday fired again at Larry Summers for the previous Treasury secretary’s criticism of President Trump’s large tax and spending laws.
In a thread on X, Bessent demanded an apology from Summers for evaluating the deaths that some estimates predict will outcome from the well being care cuts within the invoice to the fatalities that had been reported after the catastrophic flooding in central Texas.
“In the present day, former Treasury Secretary @LHSummers confirmed why he was pressured to step down as president of @Harvard: a scarcity of humanity and judgment,” Bessent wrote in a post on the social platform.
He condemned Summers’s “shockingly callous interview” on ABC Information’s “This Week” on Sunday, throughout which Summers cited the Yale Funds Lab estimate saying the invoice “will kill, over 10 years, 100,000 folks.”
“That’s 2,000 days of demise like we have seen in Texas this weekend,” Summers added within the interview. “In my 70 years, I’ve by no means been as embarrassed for my nation on July 4th.”
Trump signed his agenda-setting laws into legislation on July 4, the identical day Texas skilled catastrophic flooding that has killed nearly 90 folks — a demise toll that specialists say is predicted to rise.
Bessent condemned the remarks and referred to as for an apology.
“Utilizing the horrifying state of affairs in Texas for affordable political acquire is unfathomable,” Bessent added in his thread. “He has turned a human tragedy right into a political cudgel. Such remarks are feckless and deeply offensive.”
“Professor Summers ought to instantly subject a public apology for his poisonous language,” Bessent stated, urging establishments affiliated with Summers to “be a part of me on this name.”
“If he’s unwilling or unable to acknowledge the cruelty of his remarks, they need to contemplate Harvard’s instance and make his unacceptable rhetoric grounds for dismissal,” Bessent added.
The Hill has reached out to Summers for remark.
Bessent’s remarks come after Summers, within the interview, railed towards the president’s legacy-defining laws.
“There is no such thing as a economist wherever, with out a robust political agenda, who’s saying that this invoice is a optimistic for the financial system. And the overwhelming view is that it’s in all probability going to make the financial system worse,” Summers stated within the interview on Sunday.
“Give it some thought this manner,” he continued. “How lengthy can the world’s biggest debtor stay the world’s biggest energy? And that is piling extra debt onto the financial system than any piece of tax laws in greenback phrases that we have now ever had.”