Why Stephen Moore’s Fed Bid Failed
Updated at 1:25 p.m. ET on May 2, 2019.
Thursday morning, despite an increasing chorus of skeptics among Senate Republicans, Stephen Moore insisted that he was still on the verge of being formally nominated to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
“I’m all in,” he told Bloomberg reporters.
The White House, however, was not. Within a couple of hours, President Donald Trump had pulled the plug. “Steve Moore, a great pro-growth economist and a truly fine person, has decided to withdraw from the Fed process,” he tweeted. “I’ve asked Steve to work with me toward future economic growth in our Country.”
Moore follows Herman Cain, whom Trump said he would nominate to the Fed but who withdrew after extensive criticism, especially over past accusations of sexual harassment. In Moore’s case, the crucial flaws were a long record of economic illiteracy and offensive remarks, especially about women.
Moore’s abortive nomination was at once inexplicable and utterly predictable. How did a candidate with few qualifications and a damaging paper trail get nominated for an important position in the Trump administration? Presumably the same way all the other previous candidates with few qualifications or a damaging paper trail did: They were on
