Scott Bessent disrupts NBC interview with a bizarre question about Kristen Welker’s arm

WASHINGTON, DC: During his recent interview, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent derailed from a question on raising prices and tariffs by asking the journalist Kristen Welker an unusual and unexpected question about the weight of her arm.

The question disrupted the discussion on the economy and became the focal point of the exchange.

Scott Bessent's unusual question

Scott Bessent resorted to unusual metaphors on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, November 23, while discussing the administration’s decision to roll back tariffs on certain food products.

When Welker asked Bessent, “Isn’t the fact that you’re rolling back tariffs an admission that they ultimately do drive up prices?” he quickly interjected, “Kristen, how much does your arm weigh?”

The journalist chuckled, replying, “I do not know, exactly.”

“But you know how much you weigh, and you get on the scale every morning,” Bessent continued. “Inflation is a composite number, and we look at everything, so we are trying to push down the things we can control.”

Scott Bessent dodges questions with vague economic claims

Instead of answering the question,  the former hedge fund manager veered off into a defense of the administration’s broader economic record, arguing that energy prices are flattening and predicting that other prices will follow.

“I think we’re gonna see these other prices come down and again, many of these goods were part of trade deals with countries that have been in the works for months,” he said.

But when Welker pressed him on when, exactly, prices would fall, Bessent stopped short of a firm answer.

“Weeks, months?” she asked.“Some are gonna come down in weeks, some are gonna come down in months,” he replied vaguely.

This isn’t the first time he’s offered questionable explanations in an effort to defend the president’s economic agenda.

“Because of the mass immigration, a disease that we’d been rid of in North America made its way up through South America as these migrants brought some of their cattle with them,” he said on Fox News’ 'Sunday Morning Futures' earlier this month. “We’re not gonna let that get into our supply chain.”

Shift in tariff policy 

On November 14, Donald Trump announced that his administration would reduce tariffs on food products, including beef, coffee, and tropical fruits, amid high consumer prices and growing voter frustration over the affordability of these goods.

The move came as the Supreme Court expressed skepticism about the legality of his sweeping tariffs.

“We just did a little bit of a rollback on some foods like coffee,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that same day, the Associated Press reported. He then conceded that “in some cases” his tariffs helped increase consumer prices.

Just days earlier, taking to Truth Social, Trump fumed about tariff critics, writing, “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!” before falsely claiming the US was “taking in Trillions of Dollars” from tariffs.