Trump Adds Another Dubious Fed Pick

President Donald Trump is now planning to nominate not one, but two obviously unqualified people for seats on the Federal Reserve Board. First it was conservative pundit Stephen Moore; now he’s adding former pizza-company executive Herman Cain. Few if any economists – even Republican economists – will support these choices. It’s just an awful idea, and pretty much everyone who follows the Fed knows it.

Back when Cain’s name was first floated for the position, I wrote about what this kind of selection says of Trump and his understanding of his job, so I’ll cut that part short this time.

Now the real question is whether Senate Republicans will stand up to the president or not. I’m fairly certain that at least a dozen of the 53 Republicans in the Senate, and more likely a majority, think these are terrible choices for very important jobs. I’d say that would include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Those senators are also presumably aware of the damage that Trump is risking – to the economy and therefore to Republican political prospects – by reducing market confidence in the U.S. central bank.

I’d be quite surprised if any Democrat would support either nomination, which means that it’d take four Republicans to defeat them. Rather than risking a floor battle, it would make more sense for Republicans to contact the White House now to convince Trump that he shouldn’t put these names forward in the first place. In the end, I suspect they will. Although Republicans in Congress haven’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt here, plenty of them have in fact voted against Trump and lived to tell the tale. It’s also possible that business interests, including those more or less aligned with the Republican Party, will speak up.

If I had to guess right now at even odds, I’d say that neither Moore nor Cain winds up on the Fed Board. Plenty of Trump’s unconventional personnel ideas have been shut down by Republican opposition in the past. It’s hardly a sure thing, though – and it wouldn’t be the first self-destructive plan Trump has managed to carry out because Republicans weren’t willing to oppose it.

1. Dan Drezner on U.S. hegemony.

2. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O'Brien on Trump’s tax returns.

3. Also at Bloomberg Opinion, Francis Wilkinson on Trump's border crisis.

4. While Dara Lind has plenty about what’s real and what’s reality TV on the border.

5. And the folks at FiveThirtyEight give themselves a report card.

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