Scott Bessent on the national debt: 'There's nothing magic about the $40 trillion number'

sb (Credit: Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. national debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time this week, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants Americans—and markets—to shrug it off.

“There’s nothing magic about the $40 trillion number,” Bessent told CNBC‘s Sara Eisen in an exclusive interview on Squawk on the Street Thursday. “And we can grow our way out of that.”