Bessent: ‘The United States of America Is Never Going to Default’

Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed the possibility of the United States defaulting on its debt.

Bessent declined to offer a hard date for the so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill that authorizes U.S. government spending on debt payments.

“I want to ask you about this big tax bill that worked through the House, is going to the Senate next,” host Margaret Brennan said. “In it is an increase or suspension to the debt limit that you need delivered on by mid-July. How close of a brush with default could this be, given how massive some of the Senate changes are expected to be to the other parts of the bill?”

“Well, first of all, Margaret, I will say the United States of America is never going to default,” Bessent replied. “That is never going to happen, that we are on the warning track and we will never hit the wall.”

“You have more wiggle room if they don’t deliver this by mid-July?” Brennan asked. “I mean, how hard of a date is this?”

Bessent replied, “We don’t give out the X-date, because we use that to move the bill forward.”

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