One Trump cabinet nominee the Media Research Center didn’t have to do much heavy lifting to get through the nomination process is Scott Bessent, the choice for treasury secretary. Indeed, it seems that the MRC got the memo that he was not to be opposed at all:
- A Dec. 7 post by Tim Graham cited the fact that Bessent is “a married gay man” — not to question his morality but, rather, as alleged proof that Donald Trump will not overturn the legality of gay marriage.
- A Jan. 17 post by Jorge Bonilla otherwise bashing criticism of the Trump administration as a “oligarchy” complained: “Cordes included an incomplete portion of Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) questioning of Bessent which focused on the “oligarchy” question. Tellingly, Cordes omitted the part of the exchange where Bessent absolutely COOKS Bernie.”
The only other relevant mentions of Bessent came in a series of posts promoting the dishonest claim that Google is somehow biased against Trump nominees because the news outlets cited in searches about the nominees are supposedly “leftist.”
But there’s one other newsworthy detail of Bessent’s biography the MRC has completely censored: He used to work for George Soros. On top of that, he played a key role in one of the most notorious things Soros has done in betting against the British pound to make a windfall. Several MRC posts have made a point of noting that Soros “broke the Bank of England” as an argument against him. But even MRC anti-Soros point man Joseph Vazquez, who wrote one of those posts, has stayed silent about this truth.
That’s not the only controversy involving Bessent. Last year, it was revealed that Four Seasons Press, a book publisher with a penchant for paying six-figure advances to right-wing authors like Peter Navarro and Mark Meadows, as well as a fawning biography of Tucker Carlson — as well as buying books it didn’t publish and accused of silencing authors through that money — was also bankrolled by Bessent, who sold off the company before that fact became widely known.
You’d think that someone who sates Soros as much as the MRC would be raising warning flags over Bessent and his infiltration into right-wing politics. Apparently not — money is more important to the MRC than the truth, apparently