Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts held nothing back on Sunday in her criticism of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell over his handling of the economy.
“My views on Jay Powell are well-known at this point,” Warren said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He has had two jobs. One is to deal with monetary policy. One is to deal with regulation. He has failed at both.”
Warren’s comments come as the Fed is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter-point this week, despite turmoil in the banking industry and the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Warren argued Powell is a “dangerous man” to serve as Fed chairman.
“Donald Trump ran for president saying he would lighten the regulations on these banks,” she noted. “And then Jerome Powell just literally took a flamethrower to these regulations in order to make them less and less effective.”
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.”
Host Margaret Brennan then asked if her opposition to Powell is "sowing more distrust in the federal government right now."
"What I'm doing is being honest about what's gone wrong," Warren responded. "I don't think you build any trust at all, if you don't start with why it's broken, and who it is - excuse me, that is responsible for that. We need accountability for our regulators who clearly fell down on the job, and that starts with Jerome Powell. And we need accountability for the executives of these large financial institutions."
“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