Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh is set to make a case to lawmakers on Tuesday that Federal Reserve independence is not “particularly threatened” when figures like the president state their views.
The issue, of course, is that President Trump has gone significantly farther than simply stating his views. He has repeatedly threatened to fire the current chair, Jerome Powell, after demanding lower interest rates and mocking him personally for not doing so.
The president has also made pointed comments about what he expects from Powell’s successor, which Warsh may be hard-pressed to explain when he appears before lawmakers today.
One post in particular from December saw the president lay out “THE TRUMP RULE” on Truth Social.
“I want my new Fed Chairman to lower Interest Rates if the Market is doing well,” the president wrote. “Inflation will take care of itself and, if it doesn’t, we can always raise Rates at the appropriate time.”
He concluded that “Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!”
Warsh, by contrast, is set to tell lawmakers that he is committed to “ensuring that the conduct of monetary policy remains strictly independent” and that a core central bank mission is “to ensure price stability, without excuse or equivocation, argument or anguish.”
Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota is one of the Democrats set to question Warsh today. She mentioned this particular post on Monday during a call with reporters.
“Trump himself has been explicit,” she said.
Trump announced Warsh as his pick about a month after that post and has nodded to him specifically at times since. The president even reportedly joked to attendees at the closed-door Alfalfa Club dinner in late January that he would sue Warsh if he didn’t lower interest rates.
The president later made light of the comments to reporters, noting, “It’s a comedy dinner.”