White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro touted “Trumpnomics” in a recent interview during a rant against Jerome Powell, slamming the Federal Reserve chair as a “pure partisan” actor who, in his view, is holding back the economy.
“So, here’s the deal. It’s like in the first term, when President Trump was in, Powell gets up to the chair, and the first thing he starts doing is raising rates, because he doesn’t understand how powerful Trumpnomics is and be able to generate strong growth without generating inflation,” Navarro, a frequent critic of Powell, said during his appearance on John Catsimatidis radio show “Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM.
“He cost this country a full point of growth per year, which is just a lot of jobs, close to a million jobs,” he added. “It’s billions of dollars in tax revenues and so things. And then second, when he’s in with Biden in order to get reappointed, he cozies up the Biden, pure partisan political c—, and he doesn’t raise interest rates when Biden and then, God, the Democrat Congress are spending money like drunken sailors, driving the inflation rate. Not taking care of supply chains.”
Trump and officials in his administration have criticized Powell in recent months over the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates steady despite inflation cooling slightly. Powell has defended the decision not to reduce rates, with the Fed wanting to observe the effects of Trump’s tax cut plans and trade agenda.
The president has previously called for Powell, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 during his first White House term, to resign. Powell’s term is set to expire in 2026.
Trump said Friday that he will not fire Powell but ripped into the central bank’s handling of interest rates.
“I think he’s doing a terrible job. I think we should be 3 points lower, interest rates. He’s costing our country a lot of money. We should be number one, and we’re not and that’s because of Jerome Powell,” Trump said.
The White House accused Powell on Thursday of mismanaging the Fed’s budget during renovations.
“We’re in a situation where interest rates should be at least by now, 50 basis points or more lower than they are because what we’re seeing in the data is inflation falling significantly. And Powell just doesn’t get it,” Navarro said.
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