Thursday morning, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked about his comments Wednesday saying the Fed was behind and that rates should be lower by 1.5 to 1.75 pp, Bessent said he was not telling the Fed what to do. Here's his full exchange with Maria Bartiromo: Bartiromo: We just had Jason Trennert on a moment ago, and I know he is a friend of yours, and he came close to working with you at the Treasury, but even he being a supporter of yours raised a red flag about the sitting Treasury secretary telling the Federal Reserve that they need to be cutting rates by a full point and a half. Do you find this unusual that you find yourself in a position of telling the Fed what to do? Bessent: A couple of things, Maria. I didn't tell the Fed what to do. What I said was that to get to a neutral rate on interest that that would be approximately 150 basis point cut. I did not call for them to get there. The other thing that I said was that perhaps because they had bad BLS data in June and July that perhaps, perhaps a 50 basis point cut in September was warranted. Bartiromo: Yeah. And do you believe that at this point we are ready to see a half point cut given the fact that they've been so late in terms of doing 25 basis point cuts all this time? Bessent: Well crawl, walk, run, perhaps they'll start with 25 and then accelerate. I can tell you that based on the 50 basis point cut in September of 2024 right before the election, that the conditions now, they are slightly more favorable for a cut. But again, I believe that there is room if one believes in the neutral rate and where it is, that there is room for a series of rate cuts. And again, I'm not calling for one, I didn't call for one. I just said that a model of a neutral rate is approximately 150 basis points lower. Bartiromo: Thank you for that. Thank you for that clarification.