Bessent testifies he told Pulte he was "going to kick his a**," not punch him
Scott Bessent testified about a past confrontation with Bill Pulte during a Senate Finance Committee hearing. Bessent clarified that he threatened to kick Pulte rather than punch him, amidst ongoing concerns about Pulte's qualifications for the role of acting Director of National Intelligence. The testimony highlighted the contentious atmosphere surrounding Pulte's appointment and the skepticism from some Republican senators regarding his experience.
- ▪Scott Bessent confirmed he had a heated argument with Bill Pulte last year.
- ▪During the hearing, Bessent stated he told Pulte he was going to kick his a**.
- ▪Pulte's appointment has faced criticism due to his lack of experience in national security.
3 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 3 hours. Coverage spans 2 points on the political spectrum — 1 centre, 1 right.
- ▪ Bessent says he told Pulte ‘I was going to kick his a–‘ — The Hill
- ▪ Bessent clarifies threat against Bill Pulte: He said he was going to ‘kick his a**’ — Washington Examiner
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| Original publisher | CBS News — Top |
| Canonical URL | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scott-bessent-testifies-bill-pulte-trump-tillis-he-was-going-to-kick-him-not-punch-him/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:12:18 -0400 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-06-03T20:28:28.991Z |
| Last seen | 2026-06-03T20:28:28.991Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
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| Cluster | yT-t0_1Aql0l · 3 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Politics Scott Bessent testifies he told Bill Pulte he was "going to kick his a**," not punch him in the face By Kathryn Watson Kathryn Watson Politics Reporter Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C. Read Full Bio Kathryn Watson Updated on: June 3, 2026 / 4:12 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google President Trump's pick for acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte has become a point of contention on Capitol Hill, including on Wednesday, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed to senators that he had a heated argument with the Trump loyalist last year — but disputed some of the details.The president's decision to tap Pulte, who lacks a résumé in the national security field and oversaw the launch of mortgage fraud…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at CBS News — Top.
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