Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” on Thursday that President Donald Trump inherited an economic “mess” but has engineered an economic turnaround that’s “working.”

Bessent told host Rob Schmitt that Trump’s policies are already delivering lower inflation and improving purchasing power for American workers — a recovery he portrayed as remarkable given the damage he said the administration inherited.

Bessent’s interview came as new federal data showed prescription drug costs saw their biggest decline in 60 years after Trump made lowering prices a national priority.

Bessent said Americans have legitimate reasons to remain frustrated after years of elevated prices.

“People should be upset,” Bessent said, arguing the Biden years left households facing a substantial loss of purchasing power, with working Americans hit especially hard by higher costs for automobiles, insurance, and rent.

But Bessent said Trump’s policies are working.

“We’ve applied the right medicine, and things are getting better slowly,” he said, comparing the economy the administration inherited to an emergency-room patient who had been “backed over by a truck.”

Bessent pointed to inflation as evidence of the turn.

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed core inflation — excluding volatile food and energy costs — was 2.5%, moving closer to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

When Trump left office, core inflation was 1.4%. Bessent argued that Biden administration spending policies drove it higher, reaching 6.6% in September 2022.

The latest report also showed grocery prices declined 0.1% in July, prescription drug prices fell 0.8%, and motor vehicle insurance dropped 0.3%. Energy prices fell 1.5% for the month, although they remained 14.7% higher than a year earlier.

“I’m very confident we are going to get to a good place,” Bessent said.

The broader growth picture has remained positive under Trump.

Real gross domestic product grew 2.1% in 2025, driven primarily by consumer spending and investment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

GDP then expanded at a 2.1% annual rate in the first quarter of 2026 and 1.5% in the second quarter.

The Congressional Budget Office expects full-year real GDP growth to accelerate from 1.9% in 2025 to 2.2% in 2026, in part because of increased consumer spending and private investment stemming from the 2025 reconciliation law.

CBO, however, has also warned that tariffs and lower immigration could restrain longer-term growth.

Bessent said the administration is also confronting the federal deficit, telling Schmitt it inherited a deficit approaching 7% of GDP and wants to bring the figure below 4% before Trump leaves office.

Independent CBO figures put the fiscal 2025 deficit at roughly $1.8 trillion, or 5.8% of GDP, and project a $1.9 trillion deficit — also 5.8% of GDP — for fiscal 2026.

Bessent said combating fraud could produce hundreds of billions of dollars in additional savings.

That assertion has backing from the Government Accountability Office, which estimates federal fraud losses at between $233 billion and $521 billion annually based on 2018-2022 data.

Still, Bessent said Americans should increasingly “feel the turn” as inflation moderates and administration policies work through the economy.

“There is light at the tunnel.”