Trump can't help himself out of his own Fed chair mess | Opinion

This much we know to be true: President Donald Trump is desperate for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to leave that job in May and for his nominee as the new chair, Kevin Warsh, to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

But Warsh's April 21 nomination hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs showed something else that is also true – Trump can't accept help from his allies, because he can't help himself.

Warsh, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, repeatedly denied in that hearing that Trump had directly pressed him to lower interest rates if he were confirmed. But Warsh also dodged any question from senators asking about Trump siccing the Department of Justice on Powell, because he did not lower interest rates when Trump demanded it.

What we saw just before Warsh's hearing, and while it was going on, was that some Trump allies are eager to help him find a path for his new Fed chair to the job. But Trump stepped all over those efforts.

Trump just can't help himself with Jerome Powell

Trump, in a long CNBC interview clearly staged on April 21 to calm the markets as his war of choice in Iran rocks the economy here and around the world, was offered an "off-ramp" for the DOJ investigation of Powell by conservative host Joe Kernen.

The pretext here, as Powell called it when he revealed the investigation in January, is cost overruns for renovations to Fed office buildings. That's the excuse for the investigation.

Kernen suggested that the DOJ drop the probe, so that Powell can leave the Fed board when his term as chair expires May 15, though his appointment as a governor on the board runs until 2028.

Trump responded with a rambling diatribe about Washington architecture that concluded with him saying he "can't imagine" that Powell personally pocketed any money from the cost overruns.

"But it's possible," Trump said, offering no proof while he rejected Kernen's off-ramp. "We have to find out."

Trump also didn't help his case by telling CNBC's hosts that he would be "disappointed" if Warsh did not cut interest rates if confirmed as Fed chair, just a few hours before Warsh told senators he had made no such promise to Trump.

DOJ's investigation bar is now 'thinking it would be cute'

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, showed during Warsh's hearing why he is an unlikely roadblock to that nomination, praising his "extraordinary credentials" and defending him from questions raised by Democratic colleagues for holding $100 million in assets that he has agreed to sell off to prevent conflicts of interest, while not disclosing what those assets are.

Tillis, who has vowed to block Warsh's nomination until the DOJ backs off Powell, ran through a variety of explanations for why the Fed renovation work had gone over budget.

"If we put everybody in prison in federal government that had had a budget go over, we'd have to reserve an area roughly the size of Texas for a penal colony because of the way government projects work," Tillis said.

The real problem, the senator posited, was that someone at the DOJ was "thinking it would be cute" to investigate Powell.

"It sounds like to me somebody over at the DOJ didn't even check with the boss," Tillis said, citing a claim from Trump in January that he didn't know anything about the investigation after Powell revealed that the Fed had been subpoenaed.

Here, Tillis stretched his argument until it snapped under strained credibility.

The Powell investigation is being run by Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host and Trump loyalist who has been a willing participant in his efforts at retribution against perceived enemies, like the Fed chair. Trump has been publicly calling for Powell to be investigated since December, which is not something Pirro would ignore.

And Trump said in February of the investigation that Pirro "would take it to the end and see," making clear the DOJ's probe was under his control and would end only if he wanted it to.

Sen. Tillis was looking for his own off-ramp for the president, to claim he was out of the loop on the DOJ going after Powell. But that asks us to ignore all the times Trump has demanded that Powell be investigated.

So now Tillis is in a tight spot. He has promised to block the nomination for Warsh, who he wants on the job, until Trump drops the investigation of Powell, who he'd like to see leave that job.

Warsh, during his hearing, repeatedly stressed that the Fed must maintain independence, even if elected officials like Trump opine on whether interest rates should be adjusted. But he did himself no favors when offered a small chance to show actual independence from Trump.

"Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?" U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the committee's ranking Democrat from Massachusetts asked Warsh during his hearing, adding that she needed "to measure your independence and your courage."

Warsh dodged the question three times and would only say that Congress certified the winner of the presidential election.

This has become a standard Trump loyalty test in his second term, as nominees for Cabinet posts, judicial seats and other high-ranking government jobs reflexively refuse to directly acknowledge Trump's election defeat in 2020.

Warsh, in his sworn testimony, adhered to Trump's loyalty test, which requires an avoidance of reality about 2020. That calls into question whether we can, or should, believe anything he says about how he would serve as Fed chair.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan