Senate Republicans are warning the White House that the 2012 presidential candidate will face one of the most difficult confirmation fights of Donald Trump’s presidency and are making a behind-the-scenes play to get the president to back off, two GOP senators said.
.. Republican senators have generally waved through Trump’s nominees over the past two years, but they are reluctant to do the same for the Fed, amid fears that Trump’s push to install interest-rate slashing allies will politicize the central bank.
The resistance comes as Senate Republicans also actively are pressing Trump to halt his purge at the Department of Homeland Security and reconsider economy-damaging auto tariffs.
Some GOP senators said that Cain’s difficult path might have eased Stephen Moore’s confirmation to the Fed, despite Moore’s own problems with unpaid taxes and his partisan reputation. After all, Republicans might be hard-pressed to revolt against both of Trump’s nominees.
..“I think the chances of getting both through, I would say at the moment, are pretty steep,” Thune said.
Neither Moore nor Cain has been officially nominated. A senator familiar with the nominations said Trump is “full speed” ahead on Cain even though FBI background checks and documentations of sexual harassment allegations have not yet been submitted to the Senate. A person familiar with the process expects the background check to raise more questions about Cain.
With that in mind, Republicans are trying to dissuade Trump from a brutal political fight that would highlight intraparty divisions; the nominations need a simple majority and no Democratic support can be counted on.
Trump’s intent to nominate Cain marks one of his most brazen moves yet to take on his own party, coming on the heels of his emergency declaration at the southern border that went against the wishes of GOP senators who stood by Trump during the shutdown.
And once again, Republicans are sending the president clear signals: Pick someone with less partisan credentials and less baggage. While Cain did serve on the Kansas City Federal Reserve Board, Senate Republicans say he now largely appears to be a Trump surrogate.
“I don’t think Herman Cain will be on the Federal Reserve Board, no. I’m reviewing [Moore’s] writings and I’ll make a determination when I have done so,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who ran against Cain in the 2012 presidential race and seems confident Cain will either be derailed or not officially nominated.
“I feel that we can’t turn the Federal Reserve into a more partisan entity,” Romney added. “I think that would be the wrong course.”
.. Cain later endorsed Romney in 2012, but one of Romney’s colleagues said the Utah senator “is not fond of Herman.” Cain also challenged Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) in a 2004 Senate primary race.
But more troubling to some in the Senate is that Cain founded pro-Trump group America Fighting Back.
“Do you seriously want a guy on the Fed that has a whole organization, the only purpose of it is to encourage Republicans to do whatever the president says he’d like you to do?” said one Republican senator distressed about the nomination. The senator said confirming Cain would be “hard,” but his nomination alone “might confirm Stephen Moore.”
Cain’s group recently said in a fundraising request that Republicans who opposed the president’s emergency declaration were “traitors.”
The rosier reception for Moore comes in part because Republicans will be reluctant to reject two of Trump’s Fed nominees, given their desire to protect their already shaky relationship with the president. In addition to their opposition to Trump’s tariff threats and his shake-up at the Homeland Security Department, Republicans also recently forced him to back off his demand for a new GOP health care bill.
Yet it’s not clear at all that the president is keeping in mind the fact that he will need to get 50 of 53 Senate Republicans to vote for these nominees. Asked about Cain, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said only: “I was not aware it was that serious of a consideration.”
Stressing that he was not singling out Cain, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a whip for six years, said the White House must simply do more to consult with Capitol Hill.
“It’s really important for the White House to work with us as they’re contemplating nominees to make sure that both the White House has reasonable expectations about confirmations. We can also communicate with the White House about what the challenges of a confirmation may be,” Cornyn said.
.. It’s not clear the president quite realizes the scale of the potential task ahead to confirm his two Fed picks. A half-dozen GOP senators are bracing for competitive races next year and do not want to be seen as Trump’s lackeys. Voting against those nominees could help them assert their independence in their voting record.
Then there are senators like Romney and Isakson who have shown little fear in confronting Trump of late. Romney voted against Trump’s national emergency declaration, while Isakson stepped into a void of Senate Republicans to defend the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) from Trump’s attacks.
They won’t be alone in scrutinizing these nominees.
“Mr. Cain did serve on the regional Federal Reserves, so that is good experience. His wanting to return to the gold standard is something that is very controversial. And I don’t know the details at this point about the sexual harassment allegations against him,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “Stephen Moore appears to have a host of financial and other issues that are going to need to be explored, as well as the fact that he is a very unconventional choice.”
Potential Federal Reserve board member Herman Cain frequently promoted scammy financial emails
Right-wing commentator Herman Cain, who is reportedly being considered for a Federal Reserve seat, has spent years pushing scammy financial emails to his mailing list. Those sponsored emails touted a “weird trick” that supposedly “adds up to $1,000 a month to Social Security checks”; advice on “the best place to hide your money”; and financial trades that could “turn $1,000 into $1.6 million.”
.. After dropping his 2012 presidential bid, Cain profited off his email list of supporters by sending sponsored content. (Those emails contained the following disclaimer at the end: “The sender of this email may receive compensation for the advertising contained in this message. Any products or services offered by sponsors or advertisers have not been evaluated by Herman Cain and as such no warranty or claims are made.”)
.. Cain sent a sponsored email from Agora Financial suggesting that Americans could piggyback “onto ‘Canadian Social Security’” and collect “extra benefit checks between $400 and $4,700 every month.” CNBC criticized Agora Financial for the ad, stating: “There’s only one problem: that’s not the way it works, according to authorities.” Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy reported that “Agora and its subsidiaries have been accused of crossing the line between aggressive salesmanship and deception.”
Why Does Trump Want to Debase the Fed?
The tax cut fizzled; send in the clowns!
As far as I know, the Federal Reserve — the world’s most important economic policy institution — doesn’t have an anthem. But if it were to adopt one now, the choice would be obvious: “Send In the Clowns.”
You see, the Fed’s governing board currently has two vacancies, and Donald Trump has proposed filling those vacancies with ludicrous hacks. If he succeeds, one of our few remaining havens of serious, nonpartisan policymaking will be on its way toward becoming as corrupt and dysfunctional as the rest of the Trump administration.
Stephen Moore and Herman Cain are, of course, completely unqualified — I say “of course” because their lack of qualifications is, paradoxically, a key qualification not just for Trump but for the G.O.P. in general.
There are plenty of genuine monetary experts with conservative political leanings, some of them quite partisan. But modern Republicans have shown consistent disdain for such experts, perhaps because of a sense that anyone with real expertise or an independent reputation might occasionally be tempted to take a stand on principle.
There’s no risk that either Moore or Cain will ever take such a stand. In fact, what seems to have recommended both men to Trump was their evident willingness to completely reverse their policy views when politically expedient.
Both were hard-money men during the Obama years, demanding higher interest rates despite very high unemployment. Both have now taken to berating the Fed for failing to print more money in the face of low unemployment — because that’s what Trump wants.
That said, there’s a difference between the two men.
I wrote about Moore a couple of weeks ago, noting that he has long been a prominent fixture in the conservative movement; he is, basically, a classic right-wing hack who tries (incompetently) to impersonate an economic expert. Cain, on the other hand, is a spam king whose business model involves making his email list available to direct marketers.
Put it this way: In recent years Moore has been out there predicting magical results from tax cuts, putting out fake economic numbers, and giving speeches to FreedomFest. At the same time, Cain has been offering a platform for peddlers of get-rich schemes and cures for erectile dysfunction. So it says something about what Trump wants that he apparently sees the two men as equally valuable allies.
What does Trump want? His attempted beclowning of the Fed follows, I’d argue, from the fact that his one major legislative success, the 2017 tax cut — which he predicted would be “rocket fuel” for the economy — has turned out to be a big fizzle, economically and, especially, politically.
.It’s true that U.S. economic growth got a bump for two quarters last year, and Trumpists are still pretending to believe that we’ll have great growth for a decade. But at this point last year’s growth is looking like a brief and rapidly fading sugar high.
Meanwhile, the tax cut remains unpopular, partly because few people perceived personal benefits, partly because voters appear to be less concerned about paying too much than with the sense that the rich — the prime beneficiaries of the Trump cut — are paying too little.
Some leaders might see such disappointments as reasons to make a course correction. But this is Trump: When the going gets tough, he blames someone else. Everything would have been great, he insists, if the Fed hadn’t thwarted his plans.
There’s a good argument to be made that the Fed misjudged the economy’s strength, that it raised interest rates too fast and that the economy would be doing somewhat better if it hadn’t. In fact, it’s an argument I agree with.
But that’s not what Trump is saying. He wants the Fed to act as if we were still in a deep depression; he wants it both to cut rates and to resume the emergency policies it pursued — and he denounced — when we had more than twice as much unemployment as we do today. This would, he insists, turn the economy into the “rocket ship” he originally promised.
You don’t have to be a gold bug or even an inflation hawk to see these demands as deeply irresponsible. Indeed, they sound a lot like the “macroeconomic populism” that has repeatedly led to economic disaster in Latin America, with Venezuela the latest example.
Running the printing presses to fight a depression, as the Fed did after the financial crisis, is prudent and sensible; running them because you refuse to accept the reality that your policies aren’t delivering an economic miracle is different, and always ends badly.
Now, even putting both Moore and Cain on the Fed board probably wouldn’t be enough to push America over the monetary edge. And so far, markets don’t seem worried about the potential for runaway inflation.
But maybe investors should be worried, at least a bit, by the spectacle of a president who would rather appoint hacks and debase the Fed’s integrity than admit that his policies aren’t working as promised. U.S. policymaking is looking ever more like that of a corrupt third-world regime. And that is bound, sooner or later, to have consequences.
Trump Considering Herman Cain, Former Pizza Executive, for Fed Board
President Trump is considering nominating Herman Cain, who abandoned his 2012 presidential bid in the face of escalating accusations of sexual misconduct, for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Trump has been considering tapping Mr. Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, for several weeks but is waiting for a federal background check before officially nominating him to the Fed, one of these people said.
The decision to consider Mr. Cain signals the second time in weeks that Mr. Trump has floated candidates with deeply-held political views to fill a seat on the Fed, which is a traditionally independent body. Mr. Trump also plans to nominate Stephen Moore, a conservative economist and longtime economic adviser, as a Fed governor.
Mr. Moore’s potential nomination has been clouded by revelations of ethical and financial issues that surfaced in recent weeks, including a 2013 contempt of court charge stemming from failure to pay child support to his former wife. The White House has said it remains committed to nominating Mr. Moore, who is currently undergoing a background check.
Mr. Cain’s nomination is being supported by Larry Kudlow, who heads the National Economic Council and also recommended Mr. Moore for a Fed seat, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
It is unclear whether Mr. Cain will clear the background check. His presidential campaign came to a screeching halt after several women came forward with accusations of sexual harassment.
A Chicago woman said that Mr. Cain made an unwanted and rough physical advance on her when he was the chief of the National Restaurant Association, a lobbying group. Within days, a second woman who worked in the government affairs office of the restaurant association came forward with her own claims.
Mr. Cain has long proclaimed his innocence and sought to cast blame for what he called a smear campaign on political rivals and the news media.