The Daily Feather — No Click Bait. No Emojis.

We concur that 612 miles from 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue is a schlep. More to the point, why bother? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s predecessor’s predecessor, Steve Mnuchin, toured the Fort Knox vault seven years ago. Walking past Bessent as he approached the 6th floor elevator I’d just exited at Bloomberg’s Lexington Avenue headquarters yesterday, he emitted anything but the vibe of a guy craving validation rewarded by shrewdly planted click-bait. In a million years, Bessent couldn’t have typed: “Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox? Maybe it’s there, maybe it's not.” On Wednesday, Musk followed up on his personal social media platform: A “livestream” of the highly secretive location would be – insert fire emoji. How pedestrian. Rather than feed the conspiracy theorists, Bessent calmly reassured the public that “all the gold is there,” secured since 1937 by the 16,000 cubic feet of granite; 4,200 cubic yards of concrete; 750 tons of reinforcing steel; and 670 tons of structural steel required to build the vault. Graciously, he invited any senator to take part in the third tour of unauthorized entrants since Fort Know became the assigned protector of more than half the nation’s gold.

As dignified as Bessent comports himself, the media had a field day mocking him for not delivering on his pre-confirmation commitment to extend the maturity profile of U.S. debt. “The Fed said they may stop their balance sheet runoff,” he noted on Bloomberg TV. Once that happens, he will no longer be competing with another effective “big seller of Treasuries.”