McConnell’s First Act of Sabotage
Sixteen months ago, in the pre-coronavirus summer of 2019, President Donald Trump announced his candidates to fill two vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The nominations, formalized in January, languished in the Senate for months. Now, suddenly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to cram one of them—but only one of them—through the Senate.
One of the nominees is a conservative with extensive central-bank experience, broadly respected by monetary-policy experts. The other campaigned for the job from the lobby of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., and is widely regarded as a hyper-partisan extremist.
Guess which nomination McConnell is now advancing, and may bring to a vote as early as the end of this week, possibly even this very day?
The nomination that has gone cold is that of Christopher Waller, the current director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The nomination that McConnell has suddenly taken up, , and having already announced their opposition. She can’t afford to lose even a single additional vote—and when Arizona’s newly elected Senator Mark Kelly takes his seat in a few weeks, her window of opportunity might close entirely.
