After taking a stake in Intel and a cut of Nvidia’s chip sales in China, the U.S. government may next target a share of the money generated by patents developed at major universities using federal funding, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tells Mike Allen in the premiere episode of “The Axios Show.” Mike Allen joins Morning Joe to discuss.
“Why the f— are you talking to the president about me? F— you,” and declaring, “I’m gonna punch you in your f—ing face.”
A private dinner for Donald Trump administration officials erupted when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, threatening physical violence during the exclusive Georgetown event, Politico reported Monday.
The Wednesday evening gathering at Executive Branch, a club for Trump’s inner circle, was intended to celebrate the club’s inaugural dinner along with podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya’s birthday. Approximately 30 high-ranking officials were present, including Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and other prominent administration members.
During the cocktail hour, Bessent launched into an aggressive confrontation with Pulte, claiming the housing official had been speaking negatively about him to Trump. Witnesses reported Bessent’s explosive verbal assault, with him demanding, “Why the f— are you talking to the president about me? F— you,” and declaring, “I’m gonna punch you in your f—ing face.”
Club co-owner Omeed Malik intervened to prevent escalation. Bessent insisted on Pulte’s removal, declaring, “It’s either me or him,” and challenging Pulte to go outside. When Pulte asked if they could “talk,” Bessent responded he intended to “beat your a–,” according to the Politico report.
Malik ultimately separated the men, moving Bessent to another part of the club. During the seated dinner, Bessent and Pulte were strategically placed at opposite ends of the table, and the event proceeded without further incident, the report stated.
The confrontation highlighted underlying tensions between two top economic officials working on sensitive financial matters. Trump had previously tasked Bessent, Lutnick, and Pulte with collaborating on a plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Behind the scenes, the two men had been engaged in a power struggle. Bessent believed Pulte was overstepping into his jurisdiction, while Pulte resented feeling marginalized. Their conflicting approaches were further complicated by their different relationships with Trump and competing visions for economic policy.
Bessent, known as a soft-spoken market strategist, has been viewed as a stabilizing force in the administration. Pulte, by contrast, has taken a more aggressive approach, quickly firing more than 100 Fannie and Freddie staffers and using his position to launch investigations targeting the president’s critics.
The incident was not unprecedented for Bessent, who had previously confronted other administration figures, including a notable altercation with Elon Musk over IRS commissioner appointments earlier in the year.
Neither Bessent, Pulte, Malik, nor the White House provided official comment to Politico on the encounter.
Donald Trump has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that the basis for his “reciprocal tariffs” policy was not legal, having warned the country would be “destroyed” without it.
The Court of Appeals ruled on Friday in agreement with a May finding by the Court of International Trade that the president had overstepped his authority by invoking a law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act 1977 to place hefty levies on goods imported from America’s trading partners.
Trump was incensed by the decision, insisting it was “highly partisan” and “would literally destroy the United States of America.”
Now, the administration has asked the conservative-majority Supreme Court to decide whether to take up the case by September 10, despite its new term not beginning until October 6, with a view to hearing arguments in November.
“The stakes in this case could not be higher,” Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote in his filing. “The president and his cabinet officials have determined that the tariffs are promoting peace and unprecedented economic prosperity, and that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe.”
Attorneys representing small businesses challenging the tariff program said they were not opposed to the Supreme Court hearing the matter and said, on the contrary, they were confident their arguments would prevail.
“These unlawful tariffs are inflicting serious harm on small businesses and jeopardizing their survival,” said Jeffrey Schwab of Liberty Justice Center. “We hope for a prompt resolution of this case for our clients.”
Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs in the White House Rose Garden on April 2, invoking the IEEPA to set a 10 percent baseline tax on all imports and even higher taxes on goods being shipped from nearly every one of America’s trading partners, with China, Canada and Mexico among those hardest hit.
However, his announcement sent shockwaves through the world’s stock markets as investors panicked over their likely economic consequences, eventually forcing Trump into a rethink. He duly announced a week later that the implementation of the tariffs would be suspended for 90 days, a deadline that was eventually extended until August.
Administration officials led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick used the intervening summer months to attempt to broker custom deals with other countries but only succeeded in securing a handful of agreements, notably with the U.K. and Vietnam.
A revised list of tariffs that came into effect on August 7 saw India (51 percent), Syria (41 percent), Laos (40 percent), Myanmar (4o percent) and Switzerland (39 percent) particularly hard done by.
Then, last week, the Court of Appeals agreed with two challenges, one brought by the small businesses and another by 12 states, to rule in a seven-four majority decision that the president’s power to regulate imports under the law does not include the power to impose tariffs.
“It seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs,” the justices wrote in their decision.
They added that U.S. law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax.”
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A federal appeals court ruled Friday that most of President Donald Trump‘s global tariffs are illegal, striking a massive blow to the core of his aggressive trade policy.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a 7-4 ruling held that the law Trump invoked when he granted his most expansive tariffs does not actually grant him the power to impose those levies.
Trump is all but certain to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. The appellate court paused its ruling from taking effect until Oct. 14, in order to give the Trump administration time to ask the Supreme Court to take up the case.
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Friday’s ruling, which is the second straight loss for Trump in the make-or-break case.
The Trump administration has argued that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, empowers the president to effectively impose country-specific tariffs at any level if he deems them necessary to address a national emergency.
The U.S. Court of International Trade in late May rejected that stance and struck down Trump’s IEEPA-based tariffs, including his worldwide “reciprocal” tariffs unveiled in early April. But the Federal Circuit quickly paused that ruling while Trump’s appeal played out.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/29/trump-trade-tariffs-appeals-court-ieepa.html
But even as the bad news piles up, the Trump administration has decided to reassure panicked consumers with a chilling talking point: Poverty is good, actually.
Last month, as economists warned of the harm Trump’s tariff policies could cause, including drastically increasing the price of goods, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attempted to dismiss those concerns by insinuating that being able to afford things is not important to Americans.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent said to a crowd of economists.
It turns out this assertion was only the beginning of the Trump administration’s vision for a new American dream.
From Trump telling reporters that he’s not worried about empty stores to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying during an interview that in his version of America, multiple generations will work in the same factories, it sure seems like the Trump administration is trying to prime Americans for accepting and even enjoying a drastically lower standard of living.
