Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clashed with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” accusing the host of calling Republicans “terrorists” during the 1995-96 government shutdown and urging five moderate Democratic senators to cross the aisle to end the current one.
The heated exchange erupted when Stephanopoulos asked Bessent about President Trump’s push to eliminate the Senate filibuster. Bessent pivoted, citing a 2000 PBS interview and Stephanopoulos’s book All Too Human, where the former Clinton aide described portraying Republicans as extremists to force a compromise after the 21-day shutdown.
“I’ve got all your quotes here, George,” Bessent said, smirking that his recent Amazon purchase of the book was Stephanopoulos’s “one sale this week.” The host, 64, fired back: “That’s a mischaracterization of history,” insisting on focusing on the present crisis.
In 2001, George Stephanopoulos admitted to PBS Frontline that the Clinton Administration worked to paint Congress as “blackmailing the country to get their way” via government shutdown and characterized them as “basically terrorists.”
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) November 9, 2025
In 2025, he calls these quotes “a… pic.twitter.com/UhpWgl2emj
A shouting match ensued, with Bessent, 63, repeating his call for Democratic defections as the path forward—later proven correct when five senators did cross party lines. Stephanopoulos dismissed the history lesson: “We don’t need a history lesson right now.”