DAVID BLACKMON: Bessent Torches Biden ‘Muppets’ On Rare Earth Minerals Crisis

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has had enough of what he calls the “Muppets” from the Joe Biden administration taking shots at the Trump 47 presidency, especially when it comes to Chinese dominance of supply chains for rare earth minerals.

As the Supreme Court continues to ruminate on President Donald Trump using his authority to levy tariffs using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Bessent hit on a topic of great concern to America’s future.

In an interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns published Friday, Bessent slammed Biden underlings for taking shots now after they failed to act on the matter for four long years.

“If I hear another one of these Muppets from the Biden administration, say, ‘Oh, we should have, we knew about this critical minerals problem.’ But why the hell didn’t they do anything?” Bessent asked, adding, “They had four years, and they sat on their hands.”

He isn’t wrong. As I’ve pointed out here in the past, China’s dominance of supply chains for rare earths and the manufacturing of high-intensity magnets and semiconductor chips made with them have been a known U.S. national security threat for years. In June 2021, in fact, President Joe Biden read a speech from his TelePrompTer in which he detailed the issue and promised to mount what he called a “whole-of-government” effort to address the matter.

But no such effort materialized over the subsequent three and a half years, leaving the crisis for Trump and his appointees to address. Noting that the country was “days away with these rare earth magnets from substantial shutdowns in our auto assembly lines” in May and June of 2025, Bessent praised Trump for moving quickly to use his IEEPA authority to avert a national emergency.