Janet Yellen is not prepared to answer questions about Donald Trump.
The Federal Reserve chairwoman simply ducked the question Monday when asked if the Republican front-runner’s election to the presidency could cause a global recession.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got nothing for you on that,” Yellen told the audience member who asked the question at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
Yellen was in Philadelphia to deliver a speech about the economy and the prospects for monetary policy, but was not interested in discussing politics, which is always a tricky subject for the independent central bank.
An unidentified individual asked Yellen after the conclusion of her speech whether investors are right to worry about the “possibility of an economic crash all over the world because of the world viewing Donald Trump” as an economic risk.
While Yellen dodged the question, she did list off other major economic concerns in her speech, including that of the “significant economic repercussions” of the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union in an upcoming referendum.
But political risks are also a concern for some monetary economists.
In a column published by the Financial Times Monday, Larry Summers, the Harvard economist and former Obama economic adviser who was once thought to be the front-runner for the Fed nomination eventually given to Yellen, warned that a Trump victory would likely mean recession because of Trump’s policies and temperament.
“What I find surprising is that U.S. and global markets and financial policymakers seem much less sensitive to ‘Trump risk’ than they are to ‘Brexit risk,'” Summers wrote, referring to the U.K. referendum.
