Thom Tillis Appears To Take Veiled Swipe At Trump After Drafting Letter To Fire Powell

Forbes Breaking News

During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) spoke in support of the independence of the Federal Reserve after President Trump reportedly penned a letter to fire Chair Jerome Powell.

Transcript

00:00There's been some talk about potentially firing the Fed chair.

00:06And I think probably people need to be educated on how the Fed really only has two things

00:11that they need to do.

00:13They need to keep unemployment low and they need to manage inflation.

00:17It's called the dual mandate.

00:20Now some people may actually think that Chair Powell just has broad authority to set policies

00:28around that.

00:29And that by firing him or replacing him, then everything's good.

00:34That person can make good decisions that a given administration likes.

00:37Folks, there's something called the FOMC, which has 12 voting members and seven members

00:44that come into the discussion when we're talking about policies around rates.

00:48Twelve of them have to vote for a rate increase to occur.

00:52No one person, including the chair, can influence that unless there's a consensus.

00:57So if anybody thinks that firing Chair Powell is going to change their focus and their method

01:04on the dual mandate, simply they don't know what they're talking about.

01:07They don't know how this whole process works.

01:10And I hope they do.

01:12Because the consequence of firing a Fed chair just because political people don't agree with

01:21that economic decision will be to undermine the credibility of the United States going

01:27forward.

01:28And I would argue if it happens, you're going to see a pretty immediate response.

01:31And we've got to avoid that.

01:33Look, I've had problems with Chair Powell.

01:36But at the end of the day, I respect him and I respect the independence of the Fed.

01:42And if anybody thinks that it would be a good idea for the Fed to become another agency within

01:48the administration subject to whatever the president's advisers want them to do, they're

01:53making a huge mistake and they really need to study how that process works.

01:57Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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