Elizabeth Warren goes scorched earth on Trump's 'sock puppet' Fed chair nominee in hearing

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tore into President Donald Trump's nominee for Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh during a confirmation hearing at the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday.

The ranking member criticized Trump, calling out his attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve and its officials. Warren argued that the economy has suffered under the president's leadership and that this was his last chance to try and take control as the midterms approach this fall.

"The president has repeatedly and illegally attempted to take over the Fed," Warren said. "His bogus attacks on Governor Lisa Cook and Chair [Jerome] Powell were designed to threaten all the members of the Fed to do Trump's bidding and open more spots for Trump flunkies. Why try to end the independence of the Fed? Because Trump's economic failures are causing him political problems, and he wants the Fed to use monetary policies to artificially juice the economy in the short term. And this is his last chance to do that before the November elections."

Warren described her concerns over approving Warsh's nomination, including his role during the financial crisis.

"Warsh took on the job of Wall Street's personal liaison on the Fed board," she said. "He was quick to respond to concerns from Wall Street CEOs, and he worked tirelessly to arrange multibillion dollar bailouts for them with nothing for American families. No regrets, he says. No regrets after the crash, most people on the Fed saw millions of Americans unemployed, people who had lost their homes, and said now might be a good time to lower rates and make the cost of borrowing cheaper for businesses to avoid more layoffs and make it cheaper for Americans who are worried about paying their mortgages or their credit cards. But not Mr. Warsh. Nope. He wanted to keep interest rates high, and he sang the same song for more than a decade, even as the economy struggled when the job of Fed chair became available during Trump's first term as president, Warsh held on to his high interest rate inflation."

She said that once passed on nominating Warsh during his first term, that was when Warsh decided to call for the Fed to pause interest rates hikes. And in fall of 2024, she said Warsh "flipped again" and "was even criticizing the Fed for cutting rates."

"But as soon as Donald Trump became president a second time, Warsh reversed himself once more and began shouting from the rooftops about how the Fed should cut interest rates," Warren said.

"Evidently, he learned his lesson this time around. He sucked up to Donald Trump to snag his dream job. Mr. Chairman, last week, every single Democratic member of this committee asked that you postpone this hearing and instead conduct oversight on the president's role in directing bogus criminal probes into Chair Powell and Governor Cook," she added. "The Senate should not be aiding and abetting Donald Trump's illegal takeover of the Fed by installing his chosen sock puppet as chair. It's an invitation for corruption and for economic catastrophe. We have the power to stop it, and we should be using that power."