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Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, for the President of the United States, there are few decisions more important than nominating leaders of integrity and good judgment to hold trusted positions in office. And few of those trusted positions are more important than the Chair of the Federal Reserve. Those words were uttered by President Trump during his first term when he announced Jerome Powell as his nominee to Chair the Fed. How times have changed.
During his tenure, Chair Powell served with competency and dignity as he navigated the economic problems of our time, from the COVID-19 pandemic to rapidly rising inflation. Yet he also faced a challenge unlike any other Chair in history: a sham legal battle waged by the very President who nominated him. To President Trump, it seems that exercising good judgment does not mean reliance on the economic facts and data, but instead obedience to his every demand.
Because of Chair Powell's refusal to kowtow, Donald Trump has weaponized the Department of Justice to pressure, belittle, and threaten him. I want to commend Chair Powell for standing firm in the face of the President's tirades. It is not easy to face Trump's vengeful wrath, and it is indefensible that DOJ has kept open the possibility of pursuing these baseless, politicized charges in the future.
But Mr. Powell's term as Chair expires on Friday, and President Trump seems determined to nominate a Chair who will do his bidding, instead of one who is independently minded. Earlier this year, President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to lead the Fed after Powell's departure. Mr. Warsh previously served as member of the Board of Governors from 2006 through 2011 as a Bush appointee.
Warsh's actions during that time raise cause for concern: Mr. Warsh played a central role in arranging numerous multibillion-dollar bank bailouts, while warning against interest rate cuts even as unemployment soared. He has expressed no regrets about these bailouts and continues to support Trump's Wall Street deregulatory agenda. We already have seen the damage across our government, from the Department of Justice to Health and Human Services, that Trump loyalists can wreck. We cannot allow that chaos in our central bank.
America's economy is trusted by the world because of the belief that our economic policies are determined by facts not politics. Warsh threatens to undermine that.
When President Trump asks him to juice the economy by lowering interest rates, even if it raises inflation, will Warsh have the courage to say no? When one of the President or his allies' many shady business ventures fail, will Warsh stand strong amid pressure to provide a taxpayer funded bailout? When the chips are down, will Warsh make the decisions that best benefit his country or the President who picked him? Warsh's record and his answers at his confirmation hearing indicate the answers are no. Americans are struggling more than ever to afford basic goods, from housing, to gas, to groceries. Yesterday, data showed that Trump's war of choice in Iran has caused inflation to reach 3.8 percent, the highest in 3 years. Working families deserve a central bank that will fight for them, not the President and his billionaire buddies.
I am not convinced that Mr. Warsh has the willingness to do what is best for the American people. For that reason, I will be voting no on his nomination and encourage my colleagues to do the same.
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