https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/29/grossly-irresponsible-larry-summers-blasts-ex-fed-presidents-call-to-thwart-trump-in-2020.html?__twitter_impression=true&recirc=taboolainternal
Former New York Fed President Bill Dudley’s push for the central bank to consider the 2020 election when crafting monetary policy is “grossly irresponsible” behavior, economist Larry Summers told CNBC on Thursday.
Dudley, in a Wednesday post on Bloomberg, suggested the Federal Reserve could, and should, try to sway the election against President Donald Trump. Dudley urged current central bankers not to lower interest rates further to cover for any negative effects on the U.S. economy that may arise due to the president’s China trade war.
“For a former trusted official of the Fed, whose thinking is inevitably going to be tied to the Fed, to recommend that they ... [use] rates so as to subvert the economy and influence a presidential election is grossly irresponsible, and is an abuse of the privilege of being a former Fed official,” said Summers, who formerly was Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and as an economic advisor to President Barack Obama.
Summers, a longtime Trump critic who had been considered by Obama for Fed chief, said that Dudley’s remarks took the discussion “out of the realm of economics” and “into the realm of politics.”