As President Donald Trump doubles down on his opposition to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, one former economic advisor of the president’s is advising “Mr. Too Late” to finish the rest of his term.
“I’ve changed my opinion on this because we’ve got such a turbulent stock market right now, and I think firing him, the markets would react negatively to that,” Heritage Foundation economist and former senior Trump economic advisor Stephen Moore told Fox News Digital.
“It would be more chaos at a time when we don’t need it,” he continued. “So just make an announcement, ‘Don’t worry, folks. He’ll be gone in a year, and we’ll have a very good monetary policy.’ And ride him out.”
While U.S. stock futures showed signs of recovery, markets experienced turbulence after major indexes, on Monday, dropped more than 2% and the U.S. dollar fell to a multi-year low. Hoping that “we’re at the bottom now,” Moore – who was once considered for Federal Reserve governor under Trump in 2019 – advised the central bank to keep on the “straight and narrow” path.
TRUMP CRANKS UP HEAT ON FED CHAIR WHILE PRESSING FOR RATE CUT: ‘POWELL’S TERMINATION CANNOT COME FAST ENOUGH!’
His comments also come on the heels of Trump continuing his public criticism of the Fed chair, calling him a “major loser” and saying the central bank should make “preemptive cuts” to interest rates. The president additionally coined him as “Mr. Too Late” in a reference to missed opportunities to cut rates.
“I agree entirely that Jay Powell has been a very poor Fed chairman, and he allowed the inflation rate to go up to 9% when Biden was president. He has been overtly political, which I think is incredibly irresponsible for a Fed chairman to go out and attack the president the way that Jerome Powell did a week or so ago,” Moore explained.
“So I do think that Trump could fire Jerome Powell, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I do not think it’s advisable because I believe that, look, Jerome Powell only has one more year left as Fed chairman. Just let him stay there and then make an announcement now that you’re going to replace with someone like Kevin Warsh or an Arthur Laffer or Steve Forbes,” the economist added, “someone who really understands our monetary system.”
“And I’ve come to the conclusion that firing Jerome Powell right now would be more chaos for the markets at a time [when] we don’t need it.”
While reflecting on whether the Fed should lower rates at this time, Moore emphasized a focus on inflation first and foremost.
“We all know what happened in the Biden era when prices went up for household items by 25%. That was just a killer for families. So, whether or not they should cut rates right now, I’m not sure I entirely agree with the president on that because the last thing we want to see is a big new bout of inflation like we had under Joe Biden,” he said.
Inflation rose last month at a slower pace than expected, but remained well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal as the central bank prepares to monitor the impact of tariffs on consumer prices in the weeks and months ahead.
“The problems right now with our economy are only partially monetary. The bigger problems are, we got to get these trade disputes resolved in a positive way, we got to get the tax cut done,” Moore said while noting the approval of Trump’s tax cuts by Memorial Day will “see the stock market roar back to life.”
“What about the deregulation? Getting all these dumb regulations off the back of our businesses so they can be more cost-efficient? How about producing millions more barrels of oil? That’ll bring down the price of gasoline at the pump,” Moore pointed out. “So there’s so much Trump can do independently of what the Fed is doing to really pump new life into this economy.”
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FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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