Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Remarks before the Milken Institute Global Conference

As prepared for deliveryIntroductionGood morning—and thank you for that kind introduction. It’s an honor to be with you.If the namesake of this conference is any indication, this is a meeting for bold people with bold ideas. Well, I work for President Donald J. Trump—so I feel right at home. Mike Milken, like President Trump, is a visionary. In the 1970s, he had the rare combination of guts and intellect to defy the Wall Street consensus. With his heterodox approach to junk bonds, he pioneered a new asset class known today as high-yield bonds. By staying true to his vision, Mike overturned decades of economic orthodoxy. He bootstrapped entirely new industries by redirecting billions of dollars in capital to non-investment grade companies. His colleagues on Wall Street told him he was delusional and a fool. But history ultimately proved him right.