Trump claims he told Fed chair Kevin Warsh to vote with the rest of the board for rate hike Speaking to reporters on his way to give a rally speech in North Carolina, Donald Trump denied that his hand-picked Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, had defied him by voting to raise interest rates, claiming that he had advised Warsh to vote as he did.
Asked if he still has confidence in Warsh, despite the rate hike Trump deplored, the president said:
“I do. I mean, I’m relying on Kevin, but he’s got a very tough board. He’s got a board that was put there by a lot of other people. And the interest rates are too high. They’re not appropriate,” Trump replied. “I told Kevin, I said, ‘You might as well vote with the board because it’s just not going to matter.’ The board is very hostile. They’re very political. They’re doing the wrong thing. They’re a bunch of politicians. They are people put on by politicians.”
“We should be paying the lowest interest rate anywhere in the world because we have the strongest credit,” he added. “If we wanted to get rid of deficits, which we could do with the swipe of the pen with every country, we’d make a trillion and a half dollars a year. We’d pay off our debt. We’d do all sorts of things. But we haven’t chosen to do that. But at some point, we will. Interest rates are too high.”
Later, asked again about Warsh, Trump said: “It doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have the votes… No matter how good a job, he’s got a hostile board… They’re raising that only for political reasons, and that’s a raise against Trump.”
Donald Trump speaks to the press as he arrives at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on 16 September. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Read More