Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called for a new Federal Reserve Chairman on Sunday as she lashed out at Jerome Powell’s job performance.
Appearing on several Sunday talk shows, Warren accused Powell of taking a “flamethrower” to regulations on big banks and failing to control inflation. In the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Warren called for the Federal Reserve and Congress to impose more regulations. She also said that Powell should not be chairman of the Fed.
“Donald Trump ran for president saying he would lighten the regulations on these banks,” Warren said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” “And then Jerome Powell just literally took a flamethrower to these regulations in order to make them less and less effective.”
“Jerome Powell has said that all he wants to do is lighten regulations on the banks,” she added. “I opposed him as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank precisely for that reason. I said he was a dangerous man to have in this position.”
Warren went on to call for “accountability” from Powell and the financial regulators who “clearly fell down on the job”; and from financial executives who she says enabled the SVB collapse with risky investments.
“We need accountability for our regulators who clearly fell down on the job,” @SenWarren tells @margbrennan on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, adding that it “starts with” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who she says “was a dangerous man to have in this position.” pic.twitter.com/B2VYr0uZYM
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) March 19, 2023
Warren echoed similar sentiments on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“He has a dual mandate,” she said. “Yes he is responsible for dealing with inflation, but he is also responsible for employment. And what Chair Powell is trying to do– and he has said fairly explicitly– is that they are trying to, in effect, slow down the economy so that – this is, by the Fed’s own estimate – two million people will lose their jobs. And I believe that is not what the chair of the Federal Reserve should be doing.”
NBC’s Chuck Todd then asked Warren whether Powell should be fired.
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“My views on Jay Powell are well known at this point,” Warren responded. “He has had two jobs. One is to deal with monetary policy. One is to deal with regulation. He has failed at both.”
“Look, I don’t think he should be chairman of the Federal Reserve,” she concluded. “I have said it as publicly as I know how to say it. I’ve said it to everyone.”