In a post published on his X account on June 9, Spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Esmaeil Baqaei shared a video of Bessent speaking at the Reagan National Economic Forum and accompanied it with a passage from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“Now does he feel his title

Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe

Upon a dwarfish thief.”

Baqaei’s post came in reaction to remarks by Bessent in which the US treasury secretary appeared to boast about the confiscation of cryptocurrency allegedly associated with Iranians.

In the video attached to the post, Bessent said, “They believe that we have seized about a billion dollars of their crypto,” adding, “Just outright grabbed the wallets.”

The Iranian spokesman used the Shakespeare quotation to suggest that power and authority lose legitimacy when associated with conduct he implied was dishonorable.