Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent found himself in the spotlight on Thursday afternoon, facing probing questions from the Daily Mail about a peculiar notepad scribble captured during a high-stakes Cabinet meeting at the White House.
The meeting on Wednesday, attended by President Donald Trump, saw Bessent seemingly fixated on one key theme: ‘resilience, resilience, resilience,’ as repeatedly noted in his notepad.
Photographers managed to catch a sharp, close-up image of Bessent’s notepad, revealing a string of enigmatic phrases prominently displayed in front of him.
The Daily Mail pressed for answers, questioning whether this repetition was intended to soothe the President or if it was a mantra to help Bessent maintain his own composure during the intense discussions.
Instead of providing a standard bureaucratic reply, Bessent responded with a mischievous smile and a cryptic retort.
He quipped that he wrote those notes specifically for onlookers to capture and think they had stumbled upon an exclusive ‘scoop.’
The spy shot during the Cabinet meeting revealed a fascinating peek into the Secretary’s mindset, starting with the word ‘Resilience’ written at the very top and emphasized with a heavy underline.
Further down, he had jotted down ‘Operation Economic Fury,’ which is a direct reference to the Trump administration’s aggressive economic pressure and sanctions campaign against the government of Iran.
In parentheses, accompanied by a prominent checkmark, Bessent had also written the phrase ‘Just in time, just in case,’ followed directly underneath by another mention of ‘resilience,’ the word ‘prosperity,’ and a final, mysterious word starting with the letter ‘s’ that could not be deciphered by the camera lens.
Bessent was asked about the deal several times but did not deliver confirmation of a finalized deal, or his thoughts on the current one – simply saying they do not have ‘unlimited patience’ with Iran and said military strikes could pick back up if diplomacy fails.
‘We did not have a regime change in Iran, but we changed the regime,’ Bessent said during a White House briefing, arguing that the Iranian government, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the religious leadership were struggling to communicate after US strikes.
Citing two US officials and a regional source involved in the discussions, Axios said the two countries agreed to a 60–day memorandum of understanding.
There was no immediate confirmation of the report, which prompted oil prices to reverse course and trade lower.
Trump has repeatedly said the end of the war is close, but told the media at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday he was not yet satisfied by the negotiations and that the US was not discussing easing sanctions, one of Tehran’s demands.
Under the terms of the agreement, navigation in the Strait of Hormuz will remain ‘unrestricted’, meaning that no tolls or any form of harassment will be permitted, according to the new report.
Iran will have to remove all mines present in the strait within thirty days, while the American naval blockade will be lifted gradually, the two officials said.
The memorandum also includes Iran’s commitment to not to seek to acquire nuclear weapons.
Discussions over the next sixty days will mainly focus on Iran’s enriched uranium and its overall enrichment capabilities.
The US has also agreed to open discussions on easing its sanctions and unfreezing Iranian financial assets held abroad.
The report comes after Iran targeted a US air base in Kuwait in the wake of American strikes on what Washington said was an Iranian drone operation.
Tehran and Washington have in recent days been swapping proposals to end the war, which broke out on February 28 and engulfed the Middle East, while a fragile ceasefire has been in place since April 8.
Iran has since kept a tight control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital global energy conduit, while the US has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and coasts since April 13.
Tehran’s decision to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz for ships carrying regional oil, natural gas and other critical supplies has been a focal point of global concern and economic pain.
