President Donald Trump was criticized in a Wall Street Journal editorial over his latest attack on the Federal Reserve with a word he is presumably unlikely to know.
The editorial published Tuesday evening in the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper took aim at Trump after the president doubled down on his battle with the central bank, announcing the firing of Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook through a termination letter on his Truth Social account.
Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, hit back to say she had no plans to resign and would take legal action to keep her job.
The Journal editorial denounced Trump and claimed the president’s “afflatus” demonstrated his desire to control the Fed.
Afflatus is a Latin word that means a divine imparting of knowledge or power, and its use in the editorial appears to be more than a hint from the Journal that Trump thinks he is god.
The paper’s editorial board wrote that Trump can change the Federal Reserve through the board, including a replacement for Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom he has repeatedly berated over interest rates.
“That doesn’t seem to be enough for Mr. Trump, who in his afflatus thinks he can run monetary policy,” the editors wrote. “Has he considered what a politically malleable Fed might do when the progressive left takes charge under another President?”
“Of course he hasn’t,” they wrote.
“Trump is all about short-term tactics and personal political advantage. Institutional integrity bores him,” the editorial concluded. “But if he succeeds in taking over the Fed, he and Republicans will own the results and whatever inflation returns.”
The White House has been contacted for comment on Trump’s familiarity with the term.
It is the second Journal editorial on Trump’s actions with the Federal Reserve in a week, with one published last Wednesday, covering Federal Housing Finance Agency director William Pulte’s allegations that Cook had committed mortgage fraud. The Journal called it an “ominous turn in political lawfare.”
In an editorial last Friday, the publication called out the president’s “revenge campaign” against people he believed have betrayed him, including his first-term national security adviser John Bolton, who had his house raided by the FBI last week.
“The real offender here is a president who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas,” the editors wrote. “We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term, and it’s turning out to be worse than we imagined.”
Trump has had a difficult relationship with the Journal this year, despite being apparent friends with its proprietor, News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, 94, whose outlets Fox News and the New York Post openly support the president.
In July, the Journal ran an exclusive report that claimed Trump, 79, sent a bawdy letter to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as part of a 50th birthday gift.
The story ran just four days after Trump had hosted Murdoch at the FIFA Club World Cup Final in New Jersey.
A furious Trump denied he sent the letter, which reportedly featured a drawing of a naked woman, and launched a $10 billion legal action against the publication.
“We have just filed a powerhouse Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, fake news ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal,” Trump posted on Truth Social on July 19.
Calling out the “fake news media” in the post, Trump added: “I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case.”
The Trump administration then axed the Journal from the media contingent covering the president’s trip to Scotland. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the exclusion was “due to The Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct.”
