Book claims Bessent called Zelenskyy 'Mr Bean on crack' and urged Trump to bar him from Oval Office
WASHINGTON, DC: A blockbuster upcoming account of the second Trump administration has exposed deep, profane fractures within American foreign policy, revealing that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent privately launched an aggressive campaign to block Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from entering the White House.
The explosive details surface in 'Regime Change', a forthcoming book by The New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, which alleges that Bessent repeatedly used highly derogatory nicknames to describe the wartime leader to close associates before a disastrous Oval Office summit.
The revelation shatters the typical baseline of diplomatic decorum, exposing the volatile internal mechanics shaping Washington’s stance on Eastern Europe.
According to pre-release excerpts of the volume, which is scheduled to hit shelves worldwide Tuesday, June 23, Bessent adamantly advised President Donald J Trump against hosting the Ukrainian delegation.
The Treasury chief reportedly harbored deep frustrations over a stalled, high-stakes critical minerals agreement, explicitly warning that Zelenskyy was a highly unpredictable actor who should not be granted an audience with the executive branch until he signed the economic pact.
Treasury chief used crude slurs in policy circles
"I've dealt with this little f****r... He’s tricky. He’s like the special-needs child for the Europeans. And he’s acting like Mr Bean on crack," Bessent told associates, according to the leaked text.
The Treasury Department has not yet issued an official comment regarding the vulgar characterizations.
The book reveals that these crude private assessments directly preceded the highly contentious, real-world confrontation in the Oval Office on February 28, 2025.
During that tense session, Vice President JD Vance reportedly turned visibly red with anger, openly berating Zelenskyy for demonstrating impertinence and ingratitude when the Ukrainian leader bypassed the trade terms to aggressively demand long-term Western security guarantees.
Trump turned to second lady amid deadlock
Beyond the verbal broadsides, the book exposes systemic incompetence regarding the administration's handling of the industrial negotiations.
Prior to the White House blow-up, Bessent reportedly flew to Kyiv, where he immediately locked himself into an intense, 45-minute screaming match with Zelenskyy over the specific wording of the mineral rights transfers.
The economic initiative subsequently ground to a complete halt back in Washington due to an unyielding bureaucratic turf war between Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The gridlock grew so severe that Trump ultimately bypassed his entire cabinet, tasking the vice president's wife, Yale Law School graduate Usha Vance, with reviewing the text.
Mrs Vance reportedly evaluated the Treasury Department's working drafts as completely awful before utilizing a heavy pencil to personally rewrite the entire strategic document.
