National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett expressed his stance that the Federal Reserve be “fully independent of political influence.”
“I would say 100% that monetary policy, Federal Reserve monetary policy, needs to be fully independent of political influence, including from President Trump,” Hassett said on CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
“The fact is that we have looked at countries that have allowed the leaders to take over the central banks, and what tends to happen is that it’s a recipe for inflation and misery for consumers,” Hassett said.
Hassett’s comments come after President Donald Trump floated Hassett as the successor to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell when his term is up in May 2026.
However, despite Hassett expressing his opinion on how the Fed should be run, he insisted, “I don’t have a plan to overhaul the Fed now; I’m just happy to do my job.”
The top Trump aide agreed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Wall Street Journal op-ed that called for “an honest, independent, nonpartisan review of the entire institution, including monetary policy, regulation, communications, staffing and research.”
WHO IS LISA COOK, THE FED GOVERNOR TRUMP IS TRYING TO FIRE?
“Now, the question is has the current central bank been as independent as we would like, as transparent as we would like? And I think that there has been some dispute about that,” Hassett said.
Former President Barack Obama nominated Powell to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2012. Trump has mulled firing Powell but so far has kept him in the position. Other possible successors to Powell are Fed governor Christopher Waller and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh.
