Time for G.O.P. to Threaten to Fire Trump

Republican leaders need to mount an intervention.

Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office. I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box. But last week was a watershed moment for me, and I think for many Americans, including some Republicans.

It was the moment when you had to ask whether we really can survive two more years of Trump as president, whether this man and his demented behavior — which will get only worse as the Mueller investigation concludes — are going to destabilize our country, our markets, our key institutions and, by extension, the world. And therefore his removal from office now has to be on the table.

I believe that the only responsible choice for the Republican Party today is an intervention with the president that makes clear that if there is not a radical change in how he conducts himself — and I think that is unlikely — the party’s leadership will have no choice but to press for his resignation or join calls for his impeachment.

It has to start with Republicans, given both the numbers needed in the Senate and political reality. Removing this president has to be an act of national unity as much as possibleotherwise it will tear the country apart even more. I know that such an action is very difficult for today’s G.O.P., but the time is long past for it to rise to confront this crisis of American leadership.

Trump’s behavior has become so erratic, his lying so persistent, his willingness to fulfill the basic functions of the presidency — like

  • reading briefing books,
  • consulting government experts before making major changes and
  • appointing a competent staff — so absent,

his readiness to accommodate Russia and spurn allies so disturbing and his obsession with himself and his ego over all other considerations so consistent, two more years of him in office could pose a real threat to our nation. Vice President Mike Pence could not possibly be worse.

The damage an out-of-control Trump can do goes well beyond our borders. America is the keystone of global stability. Our world is the way it is today — a place that, despite all its problems, still enjoys more peace and prosperity than at any time in history — because America is the way it is (or at least was). And that is a nation that at its best has always stood up for the universal values of freedom and human rights, has always paid extra to stabilize the global system from which we were the biggest beneficiary and has always nurtured and protected alliances with like-minded nations.

Donald Trump has proved time and again that he knows nothing of the history or importance of this America. That was made starkly clear in Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s resignation letter.

Trump is in the grip of a mad notion that the entire web of global institutions and alliances built after World War II — which, with all their imperfections, have provided the connective tissues that have created this unprecedented era of peace and prosperity — threatens American sovereignty and prosperity and that we are better off without them.

So Trump gloats at the troubles facing the European Union, urges Britain to exit and leaks that he’d consider quitting NATO. These are institutions that all need to be improved, but not scrapped. If America becomes a predator on all the treaties, multilateral institutions and alliances holding the world together; if America goes from being the world’s anchor of stability to an engine of instability; if America goes from a democracy built on the twin pillars of truth and trust to a country where it is acceptable for the president to attack truth and trust on a daily basis, watch out: Your kids won’t just grow up in a different America. They will grow up in a different world.

The last time America disengaged from the world remotely in this manner was in the 1930s, and you remember what followed: World War II.

You have no idea how quickly institutions like NATO and the E.U. and the World Trade Organization and just basic global norms — like thou shalt not kill and dismember a journalist in your own consulate — can unravel when America goes AWOL or haywire under a shameless isolated president.

But this is not just about the world, it’s about the minimum decorum and stability we expect from our president. If the C.E.O. of any public company in America behaved like Trump has over the past two years —

  • constantly lying,
  • tossing out aides like they were Kleenex,
  • tweeting endlessly like a teenager,
  • ignoring the advice of experts —

he or she would have been fired by the board of directors long ago. Should we expect less for our president?

That’s what the financial markets are now asking. For the first two years of the Trump presidency the markets treated his dishonesty and craziness as background noise to all the soaring corporate profits and stocks. But that is no longer the case. Trump has markets worried.

.. The instability Trump is generating — including his attacks on the chairman of the Federal Reserve — is causing investors to wonder where the economic and geopolitical management will come from as the economy slows down.

  • What if we’re plunged into an economic crisis and we have a president whose first instinct is always to blame others and
  • who’s already purged from his side the most sober adults willing to tell him that his vaunted “gut instincts” have no grounding in economics or in law or in common sense. Mattis was the last one.

We are now left with the B team — all the people who were ready to take the jobs that Trump’s first team either resigned from — because they could not countenance his lying, chaos and ignorance — or were fired from for the same reasons.

I seriously doubt that any of these B-players would have been hired by any other administration. Not only do they not inspire confidence in a crisis, but they are all walking around knowing that Trump would stab every one of them in the back with his Twitter knife, at any moment, if it served him. This makes them even less effective.

Indeed, Trump’s biggest disruption has been to undermine the norms and values we associate with a U.S. president and U.S. leadership. And now that Trump has freed himself of all restraints from within his White House staff, his cabinet and his party — so that “Trump can be Trump,” we are told — he is freer than ever to remake America in his image.

And what is that image? According to The Washington Post’s latest tally, Trump has made 7,546 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day, through Dec. 20, the 700th day of his term in office. And all that was supposedly before “we let Trump be Trump.”

If America starts to behave as a selfish, shameless, lying grifter like Trump, you simply cannot imagine how unstable — how disruptive —world markets and geopolitics may become.

We cannot afford to find out.

The Trump Boom Is No Mere ‘Sugar High’

The latest liberal spin is that the economy is on a “sugar high” from deficit-financed tax cuts and spending hikes. When the rush wears off, they warn, watch out for a crash landing. It’s true that in fiscal 2018 the budget deficit swelled to nearly $800 billion, or about 4.2% of gross domestic product. But the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that the economic “contribution” from extra government spending added only 0.23 percentage point to growth in 2018. So even without all the budget bloat, the economy would still be growing well above 3%.

.. The same BEA data confirm that this year’s growth comes predominantly from a boom in production and investing—particularly in construction, manufacturing, and oil and gas development. While the housing market is weak, consumers are spending more as their wages rise.
.. The real contradiction in the “sugar high” argument is that it ignores the slow growth of the Obama years, which featured an avalanche of debt spending. Deficits as a share of GDP were 9.8% in 2009, 8.6% in 2010, 8.3% in 2011 and 6.7% in 2012. Where was the sugar high then? Instead of the expected burst in output coming out of the 2008-09 recession, borrowing more than $1 trillion a year for four years yielded the worst recovery since the Great Depression. Even excluding 2009, Mr. Obama’s deficits averaged more than 5% of GDP throughout the rest of his presidency but produced less growth than Mr. Trump has with lower deficits.

This wasn’t what Keynesians expected. Mr. Obama’s economic team predicted 4% growth every year coming out of the recession. Instead the “sugar high” from record peacetime deficits produced measly 2% growth. By 2016 GDP was running about $2 trillion below the trend line of a normal recovery.

The fastest growth rate over the past three decades was recorded in Bill Clinton’s second term, when federal government spending fell from 21.5% to 18% of GDP and deficits disappeared into surpluses. So much for the idea that deficit spending is a stimulant.

Mr. Trump’s fiscal policies have produced more growth than Mr. Obama’s because they were designed to incentivize businesses to invest, hire and produce more here at home. The Obama “stimulus,” by contrast, went for food stamps, unemployment benefits, ObamaCare subsidies, “cash for clunkers” and failed green energy handouts.

.. Massive government spending blitzes don’t produce “sugar highs” or anything like them. Even some conservatives erroneously argue that military spending stimulates the economy. But as Milton Friedman said, the government can only put money into the economy that it first takes out.

.. Those pushing the “sugar high” fallacy also don’t realize that the Trump tax cuts aren’t going away soon. The 2017 business tax cuts can’t cause a recession in 2019 or 2020 because they don’t expire until 2025. They aren’t sugar pills.

The biggest threats to the economic boom and financial markets today are a deflationary Federal Reserve and the specter of a global trade war. Solve those problems and the American economy can keep flying high on its own power. And Mr. Trump’s critics will be proved wrong again.

Stop attacking the Fed, Mr. President

President Trump, do yourself a favor. Stop attacking the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome H. Powell (yes, the same Powell you nominated). The result would be better for you, better for Powell and — most important — better for the country.

Unfortunately, Trump can’t seem to restrain himself.

“I will tell you, at this moment in time I am not at all happy with the Fed. . . . They’re making a mistake because . . . my gut tells me more sometimes than anyone else’s brain can ever tell me. . . . I’m not even a little bit happy with my selection of Jay. Not even a little bit.”

.. Until recently, there seemed to be a crude consensus among economists that the Fed should continue its gradual increases in interest rates to preempt higher inflation. The economy seems strong enough to tolerate tighter credit.

The unemployment rate of 3.7 percent is the lowest since the 1960s; inflation is around 2 percentconsumer confidence is high.

But the consensus may be fraying. There are signs of weakness.

  • The stock market has fallen;
  • housing sales and prices have softened;
  • the trade war between the United States and China remains unresolved

.. On Nov. 26, the paper ran an op-ed by

  • Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, a chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, urging the Fed to raise rates. The next day, the Journal ran an op-ed by
  • Harvard economist Jason Furman, chairman of the CEA under President Barack Obama, counseling delay.

.. One danger for Trump is that the Fed, seeking to prove its “independence,” will deliberately oppose what the president prefers.

.. One danger for Trump is that the Fed, seeking to prove its “independence,” will deliberately oppose what the president prefers.

.. “President Trump has gone completely off the rails with his criticism of Fed Chair Powell,” says economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. He “is using the Fed as a scapegoat for anything that goes wrong in the stock market and the economy.”

In Trump’s defense, he is not the first president to try to control the Fed and corrupt its independence.

  1. Lyndon B. Johnson lambasted then-Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin in the mid-1960s for raising interest rates against his wishes.
  2. Richard M. Nixon pressured Arthur F. Burns, Martin’s successor, to keep rates low. Likewise, President
  3. Harry S. Truman pushed the Fed to maintain easy money and credit.

.. But these and other cases occurred mainly behind closed doors. Trump’s brash innovation has been to take his complaints public; the apparent aim is to intimidate the Fed into doing his bidding. If the Fed resists, Trump might propose legislation curbing its powers. That would signal a real state of war between Trump and the Fed, with what consequences for financial markets and the economy, it’s hard to know.

.. It’s also true that attacking the Fed has long been standard operating procedure for members of Congress of both parties.

Congress depends on the Fed both to steer the economy and absorb public blame when the economy falters,” write Binder and Spindel. A lot of this criticism is political theater, designed to impress voters but not to do much else. What’s not familiar is for the president to be leading the charge.

President Trump Bashes the Fed. This Is How the Fed Chief Responds.

Jerome Powell’s playbook includes making allies outside the Oval Office, never talking politics and sticking to the economy.

Federal Reserve leaders for the past quarter-century have made decisions about interest rates without being pressured by the president.

President Trump has broken that streak, calling the central bank “crazy” for raising rates and more than once saying the Fed is damaging the economy. That has prompted Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to update playbook rules for dealing with a president annoyed by America’s central bank.

Rule 1: Speak not of Mr. Trump.

Rule 2: When provoked, don’t engage.

Rule 3: Make allies outside the Oval Office.

Rule 4: Talk about the economy, not politics.

.. Mr. Trump blamed the Fed for October’s stock market selloff, calling the central bank “out of control.” The president told The Wall Street Journal Oct. 23 that Mr. Powell seemed to enjoy raising rates.

Not since the 1990s has a president leaned so hard on the Fed chief and never so publicly. On Monday, Mr. Trump told the Journal: “I think the Fed right now is a much bigger problem than China.

.. The Fed’s benchmark interest rate is now in a range between 2% and 2.25%, well below long-run averages. The central bank is expected to raise rates by a quarter-percentage-point at its Dec. 18-19 meeting.

Mr. Powell says he is raising rates to return them to a more normal setting and avoid the type of boom-and-bust economy that ended in past recessions.

.. Mr. Trump has said he doesn’t plan on firing Mr. Powell, and it isn’t clear he could. The Federal Reserve Act states a Fed governor can only be removed for cause, a high bar that courts and legal scholars have interpreted to mean malfeasance or neglect.

.. The Fed’s credibility could suffer

  • if investors believe its commitment to guard against inflation has been compromised by politics, or
  • if Mr. Trump’s attacks sour the public’s view of the central bank.

“At some point, it becomes very damaging to the institution to be perceived as not acting in the best interest of America,” former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said in an interview.

.. Mr. Powell has told others that he knows the president’s criticism could make his life unpleasant, but that he wouldn’t respond to political pressure. People close to Mr. Powell said he understood that history would judge him on policy decisions made over his four-year term.

  • President Lyndon B. Johnson once summoned Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin to his Texas ranch to berate him for raising interest rates, saying it was despicable, according to Mr. Martin’s account.
  • One low point for the central bank came when President Richard Nixon privately pressured Fed Chairman Arthur Burns to keep rates low before the 1972 election, according to Oval Office recordings. Mr. Burns kept rates low and inflation accelerated.

.. Shortly after President Reagan’s inauguration, a White House staffer asked Fed Chairman Paul Volcker if he wanted to host the new president at the Fed. Mr. Volcker declined, but replied he would be happy to meet the president anywhere else. They settled on the Treasury Department as a neutral ground.

Top Reagan administration officials frequently criticized Mr. Volcker, who presided over rate increases that triggered recessions in 1980 and 1981. But President Reagan refrained. “He just never did it,” Mr. Volcker said in an interview last year.

.. President George H.W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady cut off regular breakfasts with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to show his disapproval of tight-money policies in 1992. Mr. Brady stopped inviting Mr. Greenspan to dinner parties and golf dates at Augusta National.

One of Mr. Brady’s deputies at the time was Mr. Powell, who served as an appointee in the Treasury’s domestic policy office. Mr. Powell, 65, graduated from Princeton and Georgetown University law school.

.. In 1994, President Clinton was upset that Mr. Greenspan’s rate increases threatened a delicate deficit-reduction plan that Mr. Clinton had guided through Congress.

Mr. Clinton’s unhappiness “never was communicated to me,” said Mr. Greenspan, who added he heard about it much later. Economic adviser Robert Rubin convinced the president it was best to lay off the central bank to show investors that the Fed was apolitical.

.. While Mr. Trump complains loudly, his top economic advisers conduct business as usual with Mr. Powell; that includes Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, National Economic Council director Lawrence Kudlow and Council of Economic Advisers chairman Kevin Hassett.

Mr. Kudlow and Mr. Powell have bonded over their back troubles. Mr. Powell shared the name of his doctor, “who’s been a terrific help to me,” Mr. Kudlow said in an interview. “I’m not kidding.”

.. Before he became chairman, Mr. Powell was the Fed’s point person on bank regulation, just as the Trump administration took shape. That put Mr. Powell in regular contact with Mr. Mnuchin, a newcomer to Washington. Mr. Mnuchin later backed Mr. Powell for the chairman job.

Mr. Trump has since taken out his frustration on Mr. Mnuchin, according to a person familiar with the matter, saying recently, “I thought you told me he was going to be good.

.. After Mr. Trump publicly complained about Mr. Powell this summer, Mr. Mnuchin said in a TV interview that he was “a phenomenal leader at the Fed.”

 .. In fact, Mr. Powell is the kind of Fed leader the White House wants, Mr. Kudlow said, because he is skeptical of traditional economic models that say inflation rises when unemployment falls.

With an unemployment rate of 3.7%, near a half-century low, traditional models suggest the Fed engage in aggressive interest rate increases. Mr. Powell, who isn’t a trained economist, views the models with greater skepticism than some macroeconomists.

.. “Jay is questioning a lot of the traditional Fed dogma with the board staff and their models,” said Mr. Kudlow.

.. Mr. Trump’s economic advisers have helped Mr. Powell cement control of the central bank, securing a cast of Fed deputies and governors who appear to be allies. All three rate increases this year have passed by unanimous vote of the Fed’s rate-setting committee.

.. The president, on the other hand, sees no reason to continue with rate increases because inflation is modest, he has said. He wants rates low to foster fast growth.

.. Several people who know Mr. Trump say his long career in real estate informs his view of rising interest rates, which have put a damper on his businesses. Mr. Trump’s firms sought bankruptcy protection after borrowing costs rose in the early 1990s and in the mid-2000s.

Mr. Trump told the Journal in October the Fed chief has surprised him, because he thought Mr. Powell was a “low interest-rate guy.”

.. Mr. Powell, a Republican and Washington native with a 40-year career spanning government, finance and law, recognizes that Fed authority depends more on Congress than the White House

“Our decisions can’t be reversed by the administration,” Mr. Powell said earlier this month in Dallas. “Of course, Congress can do whatever it wants.”

.. Messrs. Coons and Sen. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) later decided to send Mr. Trump a letter telling him to lay off the Fed.

“You appear to be telling the Fed what to do with interest rates, which we believe is unconstructive and dangerous,” the senators wrote the president.

.. In his new memoir, Mr. Volcker described how White House chief of staff James A. Baker III, with President Reagan watching silently, ordered the Fed chairman not to raise interest rates before the 1984 election.

Mr. Volcker, who wasn’t planning to lift rates anyway, didn’t tell colleagues or lawmakers about the episode. Mr. Baker has said he didn’t recall that.