Republicans may come to regret allowing President Donald Trump to install his lap dogs into key roles in the Federal Reserve, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has warned.
The Journal’s editorial board argued that plans to have White House aide Stephen Miran confirmed by Senate Republicans to join the Federal Reserve Board of Governors could set a precedent that Democrats might also exploit if they regain control of the White House.
Miran is slated to serve out the term left vacant by Adriana Kugler, who resigned as Fed governor in August, while also remaining in his White House role of chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
The Journal suggested the GOP “might regret” the next time there’s a Democratic president, “which there will be, maybe as soon as 2029.”
Trump is pushing to have Miran confirmed as soon as Monday, in time for this week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, where discussions on whether to cut interest rates will take place.
The president has been engaged in a months-long feud with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, accusing him of refusing to slash rates for political reasons.
The Journal’s editorial board argued that if Miran continues to serve as a White House aide while participating in FOMC meetings, he cannot be considered independent “by any fair definition of the word.”
“If Mr. Miran votes on the FOMC in a way Mr. Trump dislikes, he will put his job in the White House at risk,” the board wrote.
“If confirmed, he would only be a single vote among 12 on the current FOMC, but everyone knows he will be speaking for, and answering to, the president.”
Trump is expected to finally get his wish for the Fed to cut rates this week, regardless of any input from Miran.
The scathing editorial described the move to confirm Miran to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as another “tragedy” in which Republicans have failed to “look beyond short-term tactical political calculations to the implications of their decisions for the long term” during the Trump years.
“A progressive president will be able to point to Mr. Trump and Senate precedent if he tries to put a White House official on the Fed as Mr. Trump is now doing. The failure to resist Mr. Trump’s executive-power excesses today will hurt the GOP and the country in the future,” the board warned.
In response, White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai told the Daily Beast: “One of many glaring factual errors by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board is the claim that Stephen Miran will ‘still be a White House economic adviser’ while serving on the Fed–despite the fact that Dr. Miran will be taking an unpaid leave of absence, have no White House email access, lose his White House badge, and not provide any advisory guidance as part of CEA in any way.
“The plain reality is that Dr. Stephen Miran is eminently qualified to serve on the Fed, and he will do so in compliance with the law.”
