YouSaid · the spoken record

Steven Mnuchin

lines on the record: 26
first: 2025-03-20
most recent: 2025-03-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I would reform the spending process and the debt ceiling process so that there was a real process of the administration having a budget, that budget going through Congress every year and that kind of the focus around spending.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We worked very closely with the House and Senate. These are huge, complicated issues. Of course, there have to be trade-offs. You have to think of how they were paid for us. I mean, when we did this the first time, it was a trillion and a half dollars static, trillion dollars dynamic, and we had about $500 billion in what we considered to be baseline issues. So, of course, there have to be trade-offs. And then I would just comment on, even once tax reform was passed, we spent the next year writing tax regulations in Treasury, which is a very important function to institute the law.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“David, one of the big titles I had in government was managing trustee of the Social Security Trust Fund And when I got there, I thought I actually could do a lot of good. And one of the things I was actually very focused on, social security still has paper cards. And I thought one of the most ridiculous things is that Social Security number is the identifier most people use. I wanted to focus on creating electronic ID. And I think that's still something we should do. Now, as it relates to the trust fund, we'd issue a report every year. The trust fund is going to run out of money. And I think it's something that Congress has to deal with. I hope that in the second half of the president's term, he can focus on Social Security reform because it's a problem. The fund is going to run out of money and there's lots of people who rely upon it. So it needs to be fixed.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“David, as you know, most countries that have sovereign wealth funds are because they have certain resources today that are going to be limited. Obviously, oil and energy is a big focus. And the purpose of the sovereign wealth fund is to capture Huge amount of those revenues today so that it can be spent over generations. The U.S. is not in that situation. So if we're going to have a sovereign wealth fund, I think obviously we'd have to borrow to put the money in the sovereign wealth fund since we don't have a surplus. And if we did that, I think it should be very limited in scope for are there certain areas that we need government support. It shouldn't be used, obviously, to crowd out private investments.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, given the side of debt that we have today and the focus on the debt, I would keep the debt ceiling. I think it's an important mechanism. It's become too political. But I think spending in the debt ceiling should be passed at the same time. So whenever Congress passes whatever the spending is, they should simultaneously pass the debt ceiling so that you can afford to pay for that. I don't think unlimited spending is a good thing. As I mentioned earlier, COVID, we had to do trillion-dollar spending. We then got spending out of control, and we need to get that back into control.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I'd say there's two issues that, again, that I spent a lot of time on, both the debt ceiling and government funding. So as Treasury, we could have the money and not be able to spend it. Because of government funding, or we could have the government funding, but not have enough money because of the debt ceiling. My major focus was the debt ceiling. And one of the things I think now is the most important issue is the Republicans need to get the debt ceiling into a reconciliation bill quickly and raise the debt ceiling.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I definitely think U.S. manufacturing jobs has always been a big focus of his. I think there was a large part of the economy that was left behind. And I do think that's a focus. Now, obviously, there are different markets that can be competitive. So I think we can have the same thing. But his focus should be U.S. investment.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, David, all these experiences are really extraordinary. I mean, what I find interesting about this is investing in businesses and being able to impact certain businesses. You know, I've had a long experience in banking. We made a big investment that we bailed out and saved what was Flagstar Bank. It was called New York Community Bank at the time. And banking is something that's been very interesting to me. So, this is the second time I did this.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the issues, as you know, on carried interest is if you have two investors and we invested, I invested 50%, you invested 50%, we need to pay a certain amount of tax. To the extent you create a fund and we decide, as opposed to it being 50-50, we're going to exchange profits, it doesn't change the tax that the government collects. I think from an academic standpoint, There's a reason behind this from a revenue standpoint, that'll have to be something that Congress looks at.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, David, I changed my signature because my signature was completely illegible. And I thought if I'm going to have my signature on the money forever, it would be nice if you could see it and read it. So I simplified my signature a lot. I guess the question is, is I wonder if President Trump wants his signature on the money?”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, David, you know, I've been in the investment business and the markets businesses now for 40 years. And I think every job I did kind of prepared me more for the future. And when I became Treasury as secretary, I think it was helpful that I had a background in markets and RISD. I had been CEO of a bank so that I understood a lot of these issues. We're small enough that we focus on a handful investments. We've done about 10 investments to date. And I find it very interesting.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's pretty clear the Fed is going to lower rates. So, I mean, if you look at the dot plot, which is what the Fed governors have publicly said, you do see rates coming down to about three and a quarter, and you see the long-term rate at about 2.8. I do think the long-term rate between being closer to 2.5 than 3. And I think we're going to see rates lowered next year. And by the way, I think the 10-year has that already built in to the market. So I think we're going to see three and a quarter, three and a half percent funds, and I think we'll see about 4% tenure.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. I mean, we inherited a tradition which has been kept up, is that the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Fed Meet Weekly, it alternates every week between being at the Treasury and the Fed. And I found those meetings very helpful. I mean, a big focus was obviously what we were doing on regulation, monetary policy. I never talked about monetary policy publicly. But yes, of course, we did talk about those types of things. We talked about the economy, and I think we had a very good working relationship.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do think Jay's done a very good job as President Trump. He had a bunch of issues with him raising rates, but then during COVID, he did give him the most improved player award when he dropped raids down to zero at the time.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I actually don't think we need more agents. What we need is a bigger investment in technology in the IRS. The systems are outdated. And I think in this day and age, there's a lot we can do with technology that we don't need physical agents auditing people. It can be done electronically.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My view on crypto has been pretty consistent. We did a lot of work on this in the first term. If people want to buy crypto as an asset class like they buy gold, that's fine. To me, the bigger issue has been making sure that crypto is not used for illicit activities. And, you know, we spent a long time getting rid of Swiss numbered banking accounts, making sure that we have a mechanism that crypto can be compliant with BSA and all of our money laundering regulations. And I have concerns today about that.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, it's funny that you say that. And Bob Really was kind of credited with the strong dollar policy. And I think it's kind of every Treasury Secretary after that, you got Treasury 101 training. And the first thing they told you was just talk about a strong dollar. You know, actually, when I was at Davos, I commented on a balanced, stable dollar as opposed to saying a strong dollar. And all of a sudden the dollar moved significantly. I think on the long term, it is important that we have a strong dollar. The dollar is the reserve currency of the world, and a strong dollar affects a strong economy. In the short term, particularly because of trade, the strength of the dollar can have a negative impact. But I think the most important thing is actually a stable dollar so that there's not volatility.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two trillion we never should have spent, and then the Biden administration kept on spending. So, you know, we have debt-to-GDP of close to 125% today. That's a gigantic problem. Secretary Bessant has talked about getting the deficit down from 6% to 3% of GDP. And that's got to be a major focus. So if we're going to do the tax cuts, we need to make sure there's pay fors and we need to make sure there's economic growth.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, David, let me just say I think the deficit is probably the most important issue today in terms of the long-term impact on the economy. And just to put this in perspective, in the first term, we had debt-to-GDP ratio of about 100%. And with the tax cuts and economic growth before COVID, we were growing the economy faster than we were growing the debt. So that ratio would have come down. And I think we were trying to get it down to 90 to 95. The big focus on the first term was military spending. We unfortunately had to increase nonmilitary spending to get it through the House and Senate. But what really impacted us was COVID. And I think, as you know, firsthand, we had to spend a lot of money in COVID or we would have had a worldwide depression, not recession. I think the problem was, you know, the first $2 trillion was well spent.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, when we pass the tax cuts, and this was a lot of work, we were very engaged with both the House and Senate. And actually, we had weekly meetings, which was called the Big Six. It was me and Gary Cohn from the White House. It was the Senate, and it was the House. And literally every week we sat down and went through details. So, I mean, as you know, we had sweeping tax reform across everything. This time it is actually a lot simpler, but I do think Secretary Bessant needs to be very focused on working with the House and the Senate to get this across the finish line.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're not in as much as a cash society as we used to, so there's a lot of tips that go through an electronic mechanism. I think if he wants to have a small carve out for tax-on tips, I think that makes sense. Obviously, if you start giving tips to investment bankers at the end of the year instead of bonuses, and they don't get taxed, that would be a little bit more problematic, you could tax your lawyers. So I think if he does that, it needs to have a small carve out.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the biggest focus for them is just extending the personal side of the tax cuts, which are going to expire. And I think that was a signature part of his first term. And I think that's got to be the priority to continue. Now, on top of that, I know he wants to do additional tax cuts, and that'll be a little bit more challenging with the pay force.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think the market really wants certainty and understanding certainty and will adjust to whatever they are. I think the problem right now is we don't have certainty. My own view on the tariffs would be that if he wants to do something, I like the idea of the 10% tariff across the board. It's a consumption tax on foreign goods. But if he were to do that, he should do that through the reconciliation process so that can be scored, I think would raise about $2.5 trillion and could be used to pay for tax cuts, as an example.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The president's been very focused on tariffs for a long time. And he fundamentally believes it's a good source of revenue and that it's impactful in getting people to change behavior. And that's what we're seeing today.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I haven't told him what to do. I think he's in very good shape. Look, I understood the president's agenda. I had the opportunity to help shape the economic agenda, and we were proud of what we did the first term. We were focused on tax cuts getting the biggest tax cuts done, trade, and regulatory relief. And I'm excited to see them focused on it again.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, it was an extraordinary experience working for him and being part of the whole first campaign. And now I'm really focused on private investments and opportunities. But I am trying to help from the outside.”
2025-03-20 · The David Rubenstein Show · Steven Mnuchin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source