Scott Bessent Echoes CZ’s Media War Playbook In Explosive Attack on FT

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused the Financial Times of fabricating a story claiming he supported modeling Treasury-Federal Reserve (Fed) relations on the Bank of England (BoE) framework.

The explosive denial comes after the FT published its report, citing unnamed financial industry executives.

Bessent vs. FT and What It Means for Crypto Markets

Bessent called the FT article “explicitly false” and said journalists ignored his direct, on-the-record rejection of the premise.

The FT had reported that Bessent discussed tightening Treasury oversight of the Fed by adopting elements of the BoE’s model, including letter-writing mechanisms between the chancellor and the central bank governor.

“FT has literally manufactured an entirely fake policy position for the Administration and me,” Bessent lamented in a post.

Bessent pointed to his own 20,000-plus words of published commentary on Fed reform, where no such proposal exists.

He also dismissed the BoE’s governor-chancellor letter system as “useless and perfunctory.”

The confrontation carries an echo familiar to crypto audiences. In September 2025, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) launched a near-identical attack on the FT after it reported that his investment firm YZi Labs planned to raise external capital.

CZ called that story “completely false news” built on “fake/wrong/made-up info and negative narratives.”

Both accused the FT of relying on anonymous sourcing to manufacture positions they never held and of ignoring explicit denials provided on the record.

In the same tone, CZ recently called out the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), launching an offensive against the publication for alleging that more than $1 billion in crypto transactions tied to Iran-linked networks flowed through the exchange.

Why Crypto Traders Should Watch This Fight

While the dispute centers on monetary policy independence, Bessent remains one of the most influential voices shaping US digital asset regulation.

He has publicly backed a US Strategic Bitcoin (BTC) Reserve, pushed stablecoin legislation, and supported the CLARITY Act for market structure rules.

Any shift in the Treasury-Fed dynamic could ripple into crypto through monetary policy signals, stablecoin demand, and regulatory posture.

Bessent has previously described the Fed’s Quantitative Easing (QE) programs as a “gain-of-function monetary policy experiment,” language that signals appetite for structural reform.

Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to succeed Fed Chair Jay Powell when his term ends in May 2026, has separately signaled interest in BoE-style accountability mechanisms during financial crises.

Whether the FT story holds or collapses under Bessent’s rebuttal, the pattern of powerful figures publicly torching legacy media on X (Twitter) shows no sign of slowing down.