Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was put on the spot at Thursday's press briefing, when he was forced to defend President Trump's decision to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"What is the point of the Trump administration going to a place that is regarded usually as a hangout for globalists?" CBS News' Major Garrett asked Mnuchin. The treasury secretary responded by rejecting the idea that Davos is a "globalist" haunt, insisting that Trump was attending the conference in order to promote his "America First" agenda. "The economy that is good for the U.S. is good for the rest of the world," Mnuchin said.
USA Today describes the World Economic Forum as a summit where "the global power brokers meet, discuss and seek to solve the world's most intractable problems." Mediaite notes that "U.S. presidents have rarely gone."
Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon once lamented that the Republican Party had become "the party of Davos." Last year, Trump declined to send anyone from the administration to Davos in an official capacity; at the time, an unnamed source from the Trump transition team told Bloomberg that doing so "would betray his populist-fueled movement."