Scott Bessent, the United States Secretary of the Treasury, reportedly called the president of a wartime ally a 'little fucker,' a 'special-needs child,' and 'Mr Bean on crack' before walking into a meeting with that same man and then going on television to call his behavior an embarrassment. That would be the most damning part of this story if Bessent hadn't also apparently told people that Donald Trump reminded him of George Soros.
The Book That's Going to Make a Lot of People Very Uncomfortable
The Guardian reports that Regime Change, a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, is set to drop Tuesday and it is already doing serious damage. The book covers the second Trump administration in what sounds like excruciating detail, and the Bessent material alone would be enough to make any press secretary reach for a stiff drink.
According to the book, Bessent warned Trump not to let Zelenskyy into the White House at all before he had signed a minerals deal Bessent himself had helped draft. His reasoning, apparently, was personal experience. "I've dealt with this little fucker," Bessent reportedly told associates. "He's tricky. He's like the special-needs child for the Europeans. And he's acting like Mr Bean on crack."
The treasury department did not respond to a request for comment from The Guardian. Shocking, that.
The Meeting Went Exactly As Advertised
Bessent's warnings went unheeded, Zelenskyy came to the White House on February 28, 2025, and the whole thing collapsed in real time on international television. Trump and JD Vance publicly dressed down the Ukrainian president for insufficient gratitude, with Vance reportedly turning steadily red as Zelenskyy pushed for security guarantees. The optics were catastrophic. The diplomatic fallout was worse.
What makes this richer is what happened next. After the meeting imploded, Bessent went to Bloomberg and put on a masterclass in brass-faced audacity. He called Zelenskyy's behavior "one of the great diplomatic own goals" and said he was "shocked" that Zelenskyy would "disrespect the American people like this." The same man who had privately been calling Zelenskyy a special-needs Mr Bean was now on camera playing wounded on behalf of the republic. Incredible work.
The Shouting Match That Preceded All of This
Here is something the public did not know until now. Before the Oval Office disaster, Bessent flew to Kyiv to get Zelenskyy to sign the minerals deal. It did not go smoothly. According to Haberman and Swan, the two men spent 45 minutes berating each other. Bessent had been on the job for only a few days. He ended the meeting by looking at Zelenskyy and saying, "What the fuck do you want to do?"
So to recap the sequence: Bessent shouted at Zelenskyy in Kyiv, called him a "little fucker" to associates back in Washington, advised Trump not to let him in the building, watched Vance melt down in the Oval Office anyway, then went on Bloomberg to claim the moral high ground. This is American diplomacy in 2025.
The minerals deal itself apparently required JD Vance's wife Usha, a Yale Law graduate, to step in and review the Ukrainian edits after the negotiation stalled in a turf war between Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. She reportedly declared the document "awful" and took a heavy pencil to it. The treasury secretary of the United States lost a contract dispute to the second lady.
And Then There Is the Soros Thing
If everything above were the whole story, it would already be a significant week for Scott Bessent's reputation. But Haberman and Swan apparently saved the best for last.
According to Regime Change, Bessent told associates that Trump reminded him of his former boss, legendary investor and Democratic megadonor George Soros. "They are the same animal," Bessent reportedly said. Let that sit for a moment. The treasury secretary of a man whose political brand is built in large part on demonizing George Soros privately told people that Trump and Soros are the same animal.
Bessent did work for Soros Fund Management before launching his own hedge fund, so the comparison comes from a place of genuine familiarity. Whether that makes it more damning or just more interesting is a matter of perspective. From a MAGA perspective, it is probably both.
What the G7 Thinks of All This
The timing of these revelations is not exactly convenient. The Guardian notes that Ukraine aid was actively being discussed at the G7 summit in France this week, where the United States is presumably trying to project some version of coherent foreign policy.
It is harder to project coherence when your treasury secretary's private views of the Ukrainian president are now public record and involve comparisons to a fictional British physical comedian. America's allies are watching. They have been watching for a while now. They have seen enough.
The Dingo Take
Look, the cynicism here is almost impressive in its completeness. Bessent called Zelenskyy every name in the book in private, helped engineer a public humiliation of him in the Oval Office, then ran straight to a camera to perform outrage on behalf of the American people. That is not diplomacy. That is not even competent dishonesty. That is a man who thought nobody would ever write it down.
The Soros comparison is the part that should genuinely haunt the administration, though. Not because comparing anyone to Soros is inherently a scandal, but because the entire MAGA political project treats Soros as a kind of villain origin story. Trump's supporters have spent years watching their guy rail against Soros-backed this and Soros-funded that. And his own treasury secretary, in private, apparently sees Trump and Soros as interchangeable. "The same animal." If that quote ever makes it onto a billboard in a swing state, it will not be put there by Democrats.
Regime Change comes out Tuesday. Based on what has already leaked, the book appears to be a detailed portrait of an administration run by people who hold each other, their allies, and their own stated principles in more or less equal contempt. The only people they seem to take seriously are themselves, and even that appears to be negotiable.
