U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres attended Wednesday’s House Financial Services Committee hearing and asked not to chat with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He arrived with ledgers, receipts and constitutional issues that the Trump administration has sought to safely abstract away. What followed was the kind of cross-examination that has become Mr. Torres’ signature: data-driven, steady-paced, uninterested in subterfuge. Torres and Bessent are both openly gay men and have been used as symbols of LGBTQ+ representation in the federal government in various ways.
Stay up to date LGBTQ+ News and Politics. Sign up for The Advocate’s email newsletter.
Torres, a New York Democrat, asked whether presidents can fire Federal Reserve officials over policy disagreements, an issue currently before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case stemming from President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The case prompted the justices to consider how far the president’s power to remove someone from office extends to an independent body that has traditionally been protected from at-will firing. The debate goes to the heart of the Fed’s independence and whether the administration accepts a broader view of executive branch power. Bessent demurred. “I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t have an opinion,” he said, adding, “We need to see what the Supreme Court decides.”
related: Scott Bessent, the ultra-wealthy man who owned a pink mansion, said he was a “soybean farmer,” and the internet ridiculed him.
related: Scott Bessent threatened to punch a Trump official “in the face of shit,” Politico reports.
related: Scott Bessent’s mortgage history undermines Trump’s call to fire Fed Director Lisa Cook
When asked about the administration’s own position, he hedged again, saying, “There are a variety of opinions within the administration.” When asked how he categorized the Fed, he answered, “That’s how I think about it.” [it] I said, “It’s an independent institution,” but they just withdrew again, saying, “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Torres then asked for a simple number on how many factory jobs have been lost since April 2025, citing reports that undermine the Trump administration’s claims of a manufacturing revival, to which Bessent replied, “I think it’s about 67,000.” Torres revised it to about 70,000 and moved on.
related: President Trump fires the head of the Internal Revenue Service and will replace him with Scott Bessent for the time being.
related: President Trump’s gay Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is no longer a candidate for Fed chair.
related: Democrats urge Treasury Secretary Bessent, who is gay, not to eliminate protections for LGBTQ+ federal employees
Mr. Torres then explained to Mr. Bessent the Purchasing Managers Index, a blunt instrument that shows whether manufacturing is expanding or contracting. Torres said since the administration introduced so-called “Emancipation Day” tariffs last April, the PMI has been below 50 for nine straight months, with only one recent month above that line turning negative. Bessent tried to grasp the present tense. “We have recorded the largest increase in over a decade and are now well over 50,” he said. Torres hit back on a broader picture: “The score is 9 to 1. Nine months of manufacturing contraction versus one month of expansion.”
Bessent tried to pivot again, citing “long and variable lead times in manufacturing.” Torres interrupted him and changed the subject to the philosophy of tariffs and the administration’s habit of imposing tariffs on products that the United States does not produce or cannot mass produce. When Mr. Bessent defended the policy as a lever – saying, “That would be the definition of stupidity in negotiations” when asked to eliminate such tariffs – Mr. Torres responded that tariffs on bananas would not produce domestic bananas. Prices will only go up. “We have to make bananas great again,” Mr. Bessent said sarcastically, trying to finish his thought.
related: Gay billionaire hedge fund founder Scott Bessent confirmed as President Trump’s Treasury Secretary
related: Who is Scott Bessent? Gay billionaire and Treasury secretary who supports Trump tariffs
After the hearing, Mr. Torres expanded on his complaints against Mr. Bessent about what he had heard. “The only response I got from Mr. Bessent was that he was ‘not a lawyer’ about firing the Fed and made excuses for the 70,000 jobs lost to his boss’s tariffs. His avoidance is not a policy ploy. It is a betrayal of working families in the Bronx and across the country,” Torres said. defender Through a public relations officer.
As the hearing progressed, at one point the ranking member, California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, clashed violently with the commissioner over procedure and content, turning to the committee chair and saying, “Can you please shut him up?”
Watch Congressman Ritchie Torres’ questions to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent below.
– YouTube www.youtube.com
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
