‘You Know It, Kristen!’: Scott Bessent Calls Out NBC Host’s Cherry Picking Economic Numbers

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called out NBC host Kristen Welker for cherry-picking inflation data during a Sunday interview on “Meet the Press.”

Welker pressed Bessent over persistent price increases for a selection of everyday goods, pointing to coffee, beef, and bacon costs. Bessent countered by arguing the Biden administration left behind a severe affordability crisis and that overall inflation has eased under President Donald Trump’s leadership.

“Mr. Secretary, coffee prices are up 19% from a year ago, beef is up almost 15%, and bacon is up almost 6%, just to name a few. So when are all grocery prices going to come down, as President Trump promised?” Welker asked Bessent.

“As much as I like you, you like to cherry-pick. You know, when we came in, it was ‘eggflation, eggflation, eggflation.’ Egg prices are down, gasoline prices are down, and overall inflation since President Trump has come in has come down. We inherited this terrible affordability crisis from the Biden administration,” Bessent responded.

Bessent then said the Trump administration’s first priority was reining in the affordability crisis.

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“The first thing we had to do was get it under control, and this month’s inflation number was actually below the consensus number. If we look at core inflation, it was 0.2%, which is the lowest it has been in a long time,” Bessent noted. “Rents are coming down, so you know it, Kristen. You don’t get to cherry-pick. Inflation is a composite number, and I am confident that in the coming months, inflation is going to continue to ease.”

Inflation reached a record high under former President Joe Biden, peaking at 9.1% in July 2022. The surge marked one of the steepest increases in decades and drove up the cost of groceries, fuel, and housing across the country.

In the first months of Trump’s second term, Democrats attacked him over surging consumer costs, particularly the sharp rise in egg prices. Egg prices doubled between November 2023 and March 2025 after millions of chickens were culled amid a bird flu outbreak, according to the data from St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

The latest annual inflation rate for the U.S. available at the time of publication is 3.0% for the 12 months ending September 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Producer costs also declined in August, with wholesale inflation dropping 0.1% and the annual rate easing to 2.6% from 3.3% the previous month.

Revised government data also shows employment gains were significantly overstated over the past year. The U.S. added roughly 911,000 fewer jobs than initially reported for the period ending in March 2025, following a steep slowdown in hiring which continued into August.