Recently, Larry Kudlow called out Trump’s tendency to exaggerate, and he did it sitting right next to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The setting was Asheville, North Carolina, where Bessent spent August 29 through September 1 hosting finance ministers from around the world for the G20 Finance Ministerial, part of a stretch built to spotlight his economic pressure campaign and the administration’s trade record.
Kudlow sat down with him for a fireside chat and wandered somewhere the segment probably wasn’t planned to go. “I think it’s interesting. I know sometimes the president embellishes just a wee bit,” he said.
Bessent didn’t want any part of that framing attached to him. “Those are your words, not mine,” he told Kudlow.
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Kudlow kept going regardless.
He downgraded his own phrase to “just the occasional embellishment,” then pivoted to the trillions of dollars in investment Trump has repeatedly claimed to have secured. “But when he talks about trillions, trillions of dollars being invested here, whatever the exact number is, his point is well taken,” he said. “There’s money coming from the Middle East. There’s money coming from Europe. There’s money coming from Asia. We see this. This is part of the economic boom. We have the incentives, the ideas on shoring and this is part of the reciprocity trade I think it’s a success.”
KUDLOW: Sometimes the president embellishes just a wee bit
BESSENT: Your words, Larry, not mine pic.twitter.com/0NFEKBneME
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 1, 2026
Trump and the network that’s covered him most favorably for years have had a rockier stretch than usual lately.
Days before Kudlow’s comment, Trump had gone after Fox anchor Bret Baier over a report from correspondent Jonathan Hunt on Iran negotiations. “Jonathan Hunt of Fox News did a particularly inaccurate report on the Failing Islamic Republic of Iran. They don’t want to meet; they do. In fact, they are begging to make a deal. Bret Baier should straighten out his flunkies, for a change!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Baier read the whole post on air before responding to it head-on. “First of all, Jonathan Hunt’s not a flunky. He’s a great reporter,” he said. “Second of all, Mr. President, we didn’t say you wanted to meet. In fact, we played a soundbite you didn’t want to meet and there are no negotiations. We said that Treasury Secretary Bessent is hoping to meet with G-20 countries to increase the pressure on Iran and Gulf State allies, including Qatar, are inside Tehran trying to get Iran to agree to concessions. That was what was said.”
Kudlow and Bessent have history with this exact dynamic too. During the initial 2025 tariff rollout, Kudlow spent an entire Fox Business segment pressing Bessent on the trade-deficit math behind the “reciprocal tariff” formula, pointing out that economists like Arthur Laffer didn’t think trade deficits belonged in the calculation at all.
Featured image via X screengrab
